The Halloween Method
A self-help model for radical identity construction and exploration.
“Be Yourself.” This trite advice, a hallmark of individualistic American society, is given to children ages 2-100 by self-proclaimed experts and actual experts who want to hoard their true secrets to success for themselves. While Occam’s Razor suggests that in its simplicity, “Be Yourself” may be the solution to discontent, the cliché assumes a clearly understood, self-aware, and perhaps static selfhood. But the act of living is the process of building a self. We grow. We regress. We contain multitudes. Yet the proposed answer remains rote, nebulous, offensive: “Be Yourself.”
Maybe that isn’t working. Maybe that’s too simple. Maybe you don’t know yourself. Maybe you don’t like yourself. Maybe you are mandated by the FBI to change your identity and live a quiet life in a new town. Maybe the opposite is the medicine: “Be Someone Else.”
Part of the challenge of being yourself is that there is always an artifice to “being” yourself. We operate within social norms, presenting ourselves as we want to be seen. We build the lens through which the world will interpret us; or at least, we aspire to such control. Our wardrobe choices, linguistic affectations, and facial expressions are masks we wear, hiding our true selves from others and even — recline on your therapist’s couch for this one — ourselves. In a sense, isn’t it more radically authentic to wear an obvious disguise, call attention to it, claim it?
On Halloween, we envision another identity and wear it proudly, explaining it when prompted, revealing our subconscious desires and self-concepts, until the party ends. We remove our claws and fangs, wash off our face paint and temp tattoos, hang up our cat ears and crowns. Then we put on our daily disguises, dressing as “ourselves,” until next Halloween comes, and we will get to be whoever we want, once again, just for one day.
To be yourself, you must know yourself. This requires the radical experimentation usually restricted to October 31st and its season. This year, however, adopt Halloween as a state of mind and a state of being as you live by The Halloween Method. Even after the final early November birthday/Halloween combo parties have passed, you will be iterating costumes, amassing and gifting candy, and absolutely changing your life for the better through a simple five-step process.
i. Dress in Costume
Every day for the next year or five, dress in costume as anyone or anything but yourself. The best costume ideas alight between October 30—November 10th, so at first, reinventing yourself will come naturally. After a few weeks, you’ll have to reach deeper into your literal and metaphorical closets for the obscure, absurd, neglected. In your desperate search for costume inspiration, you’ll become a detail-oriented, curious observer of the world around you. Nora Ephron’s mother said for a writer, “everything is copy;” we say, for a Halloween Method-er, everything is a copyable costume idea. From book titles to fresh produce to the feeling you had in high school P.E. when your teacher threw a shoe at you and told you to get out of the gene pool… Discuss that in therapy, but also, wear it. Dress as your younger self, your inner child, or the ghost you’ll one day become. As you try on identities and fashion trends, you’ll walk that literal 10,000 steps in the shoes of your hero, your enemy, or your pet. You’re making your life your art, and honey, this is cheaper than an MFA.
Dress like everyone is watching but no one will say anything. If they do, feel free to explain your costume, spread the Halloween Method gospel, or stare blankly in the other direction. You don’t owe anyone an explanation. You take fashion risks now. Push through your self-consciousness.
On Halloween, there are the costume-wearers: radical, goofy, spirited, the very popular, and the very unpopular. There are the ignorers: not fun, self-conscious, too cool. And then there are the light participators, who wear Halloween colors. If going full costume every day feels like too much and you need to half-ass it — er, ease into it —then you saw it on Netflix first: orange is the new black. Dress in orange and black until, after a month of receiving tiger comparisons and smug nods from Princetonites, you’ll be eager to wear something, anything, else. You’ll join the costume-wearers; welcome.
ii. Give Freely
On Halloween, kids in costumes go to strangers’ houses and accept candy from them. Imagine coming up with this idea, and feeling good about it! If said children are accompanied by caring guardians who inspect their hauls with a discerning eye and taste-test their candy for arsenic and sugar content, then trick-or-treating is an affirming, community-building, intergenerational experience for everyone involved. Strangers and neighbors pass on sweet teeth to the next generation; children get to try all the candy their parents refuse to buy. Giving feels good and is good.
Turn this generous spirit into a daily habit. Every day, give “candy” to “kids.” “Candy” can be defined as: sustenance (donate to food banks or the un-homed, cook for friends or neighbors); money (and not just coins for Unicef. Actual cash, credit, and corporate matching to any cause you care about); time (volunteer, either through an official organization or just by letting your friend vent to you; we see your labor). “Kids” can be defined as: humans of any age, animals in need, 501 (c) 3s. Per trick-or-treating rules in our capitalistic society, wherein rich neighbors give out full-size candy bars or are ostracized as stingy tax evaders — the more you have, the more you give.
iii. Ask for What You Want
You’ve been a neighbor; Mr. Rogers would approve. But on Halloween, you also get to be a kid. Sent out into the neighborhood at dusk, children beg for candy like underage door-to-door salesmen. The effort required to get a good candy haul is minimal: wear a costume, carry a candy-carrying receptacle (preferably in the shape of a pumpkin), walk from house to house, say “Trick-Or-Treat.” You don’t even have to say please, although “Thank You” is customary in most parts. Although posed as an either-or proposition, the correct answer is treat, and is rarely denied.
In general non-Halloween life, we may have trouble finding the words and moments to ask for what we want. We may expect our bosses and partners to read our minds and just give us the raise or emotional support we want. We hint, we get passive aggressive, and when it doesn’t work, we feel passed over, misunderstood, and resentful. The Halloween Method pushes you to muster up your charisma, approach the people in your community, and politely but firmly ask for what you want. Even if they say “Trick,” or “No way,” you took matters into your own hands and opened negotiations.
iv. Tell Yourself Everyone is Doing Halloween
You’re making over your outsides on a daily basis, and through your actions, you’re feeling more confident and creative. Now you’ll make over your insides by changing your mindset about those around you. As we’ve already mentioned, everyone, whether they live by the Halloween Method or not, wears disguises, presenting themselves as they would like to be seen. Take this thesis to the next level by committing to this interpretation: everyone is wearing a Halloween costume.
Per Cady Heron, Halloween is the one day you can dress however you want and no one can say anything about it. Interpreting other people’s outfits as Halloween costumes increases empathy and decreases judgments. When you expect the absurd and withhold criticism, you’re considering others’ identities, developing your theory of mind skills, and assuming you have more in common with those around you than you have differences. Your interpersonal relationships will improve, and you’ll feel magnanimous and unflappable. When you see someone at a bar in an [ADJECTIVE REDACTED] outfit, the Old You may think: “WTF is she wearing? I can see her underwear.” You might even think some [MORE WORDS REDACTED BECAUSE THEY REINFORCE PATRIARCHAL NORMS]. The New, Halloween Method™️-Improved You will think, “What an avant-garde take on Pretty Woman! She’s wearing a costume - just like me! We are two humans in this wild world together!”
v. Roll With It
Out of candy? Party plans changed? Friend is apparently more problematic than you thought? Halloween can be messy, but you adapt, get through the day, and explain to your friend why to remove her offending headdress. Living every day as though it is Halloween means embracing unpredictability, flexibility, and “flowing with the glow.”
What if you’re haunted by ghosts of Halloweens past? The Halloween Method is your chance to reprogram that. Rather than one day a year to rewrite history with a fantastic Halloween celebration, you have 365 chances. Reclaim that trauma that happened to occur on Halloween (trauma with a lowercase t — for uppercase T please do this work in tandem with a professional therapist, acupuncturist, reiki healer, etc.) Whether it be stolen candy, costume malfunction, lost party invite — or so they told you, effing liars — the only way out is through. You’ve probably skipped every chance to dress in costume over the past couple decades, and how has that worked out for you? Your friends were offended, your co-workers tearfully cancelled theme days due to lack of participation, and your tie-dyed tights have languished in your underwear drawer, taunting you, a constant reminder of the fashion risks you don’t take. The Halloween Method is your exposure therapy. Participate.
Conclusion
The Halloween Method is a set of flexible tenets that clearly and simply show you how to, yes, “Be Yourself.” And who are you? “Whoever you want me to be,” answered Ryan Atwood, coining the people-pleaser’s mantra in the most iconic pilot of our time. Once upon a time, you may have said the same. But now you know you can be whoever you want to be. A creative, risk-taking, generous, direct, flexible, empathetic pumpkin, ghost, Lady Gaga, bookworm, and bunch of grapes. Ever-changing and ever-growing, you’re slaying it, day by day, Halloween by Halloween.
This piece was originally published in a 2020 Halloween zine edited by my friend Sasha. When the zine arrived in the mail, I donned my high school prom dress and a tiara I keep on the bookshelf for emergencies. Et voila: another princess who loves to read.
So helpful and insightful, dear Savannah!!!!