"Masquerade! Paper faces on parade...

Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you!"

-'Masquerade' from Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Richard Stilgoe's Phantom of the Opera

All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween, has become a secularized celebration of the terrifying. From our earliest days, we dressed up in costumes and walked up to houses decorated with cobwebs and skeletons.

The night seems to teem with all the misfortune of black cats. One may even hear the echoing cackle of a witch overhead.

Or maybe your family simply carved a pumpkin. After cleaning out the guts, the seeds were placed on a tray to bake. Be carefful to refrain from too much seasoning...no need to be that salty!

However, if you are like me, then dramatic rom-coms, not horror movies, are more your 'thang.' So maybe you will also spend the spookiest night of the year curled up in your pajamas, catching up on 'This Is Us' and scarfing down an ungodly amount of candy.

Just so you know, Junior mints are my favorite candy...hint, hint, wink, wink. That is, if you should feel so inclined to save me the trouble of buying them for myself.

Regardless of your chosen diversion on the 31st of this and every October, let us peel back the mask to consider another, more troubling, reason that we might love Halloween.

Perhaps All Hallow's Eve caters to our desire to be someone else. For one night a year, we actually have the chance to don a costume and assume an identity dissimilar to our own.

From where does this dissatisfaction with ourselves originate? I would argue that such discontent is self-breed through comparison.

We are a generation obsessed with media that is filtered to perfection. Dream vacations, bodies, accomplishments, meals, etc. fill up our explore page. Suddenly, the daily life we lead is missing something.

In efforts to achieve the unattainable we dress-up and put on masks.

Clothes that ascribe to a particular category of society. Masks that hide our insecurities, our anxieties, our frailties and our inadequacy.

We feel empowered in disguises.

That being said, I would argue that our society acts as if every day is All Hallow's Eve.

We masquerade. We camoflage our true selves with facades, projecting that all is 'fine and dandy.'

Here we are, living in a world of make-believe...but it's just for one evening, right?