Tis the season of fear. Or rather, t'was.

T'was the time of hastily crafted tin foil witch hats, fake incisors, the liberal use eyeliner and terrifying innocent bystanders with that zombie cry you've been practicing for weeks. It was a chilling night of horror as sinister shapes fled through the dark velvety night. You ventured out in your hurriedly-made ambiguous costume. As you turned the corner, you let out bloodcurdling scream at the horrific sight of your best friend's eye, dangling from its socket. Luckily, her other eyeball was intact, and the two of you set off to have a night of delicious terror.

Like generations before you, you were embarking on a frightening and thrilling adventure. But as I was pondering the difficult problem of how to turn my limited raw materials into some sort of monstrous apparel, it suddenly struck me how curious of a tradition Halloween actually is.

I decided to find out what a worthy respectable online source had to say about the holiday. Turns out that Wikipedia had many insights to offer. According to Wikipedia, Halloween has roots in the Samhain Celtic festival of the dead and is strongly associated with costumes, horror films, scary stories, visiting haunted attractions and other frightening things (don't worry, I checked this with another source).

Now, you might be yawning at this point, as was I until a very interesting phrase caught my eye. Halloween is a secular celebration. I sat right up. Hmm. A celebration of fear? So there's fun in fear and fear in fun? Intriguing.

I thought deeply about this-how fear must have evolved through the ages. First you had the caveman whose first encounter with a lion caused him such fear and trembling that the flint stones in his hands shook rapidly and started to smoke.

In the Middle Ages, the Europeans shuddered with terror as one of the deadliest pandemics in human history spread throughout the continent: the Black Death.

Also think of World War I where the whistling of bomb shells was like the sinister call of Death himself floating on the wind, screeching for souls, chilling your heart and … Well you get the gist.

From terror of bombs and earthquakes, to fear of germs, redback spiders and fear itself, this sentiment has been widespread and generally quite upsetting ... until we hit our current age of enlightenment.

In this day and age, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that fear has become rather fun. Call it the triumph of capitalism, the mark of civilization or the progress of society, but now you can get a nice dose of fear for a very reasonable price.

Take horror films for instance. Believe it or not, it is an amazing privilege that you can trudge down to the nearest Blockbuster store and for a modest fee, purchase two hours of delicious thrills and horrible suspense. And as you dig your nails into your friend's arm and clutch your squishy blue elephant, you can experience a horrifying ride of dread that will leave your heart thudding, your forehead clammy and your voice hoarse from screaming.

This, when you think about it, is very bizarre. If you told a caveman that you actively try to make yourself scared, he would probably stare, dumbfounded, at you-and not because he couldn't understand English. In fact, there is a whole host of people living in conflict who might find this behavior incomprehensible. Generally, those are the people who get their fear for free. Their daily lives are so full of this commodity that we desire that it probably seems entirely perplexing to them that anyone could want to be scared.

Now I realize there's a difference between our world's commercialized fear in DVD form, and the terror in Iraq. At home, if the images get a bit too intense, you can always turn it off and hug your blue elephant for comfort. But the point still remains, that if you had a plentiful supply of fear for free you probably wouldn't derive enjoyment from the commercialized form.

This is not a don't-throw-away-that-pizza-crust-think-of-poor-African-children type comment. I don't propose ceasing to watch horror films in solidarity with the people of Darfur. This is more of a, "I must be leading a rather comfy and stable life if I enjoy my regular supplements of fear" kind of realization.

Despite my loudly expressed terror about an upcoming paper, my fear of sharks and my dread of five o'clock meetings, my life must be wonderfully and thankfully bland and secure, if I have come to the stage where I sincerely enjoy and seek fear.

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