On this most joyous and exuberant of American holidays, we celebrate illusions.
Tricksters are rewarded - or bribed - with treats meant to ward off some unknown ill fate.
Longtime treaters know, though, that the real reward comes from the tricksters themselves whose elaborate costumes or simple cloaks of illusion warrant more than a few cookies, pieces of candy corn, or other such fancies.
After all, the smiles they leave behind will warm the hearts of even most stubborn of hermits.
All in all, not a bad rate of exchange.
On this hallowed eve all that separates each of us is a simple social contract. One side supplies the smiles, the other side the sustenance.
And in the end, it's hard to know which holds more value. Or which will have lasting impact.
Whether you're a trickster or a treater on this wondrous of nights, I hope you'll give as much value as you receive.
That, after all, is the key to all sustainable reward systems in every social contract ever written or implied. Fairness. Just plain and simple fairness.
God bless the goblins who remind us once again.
