Country of the Living Dead: How a First-World Nation Turned Its Privilege into a Ghost Story
October 25, 2025 | Issue #19 | All Hallow’s Eve
The streetlights hum their glow in the cooling air as the season begins to shift. Porch lights flicker on, illuminating carved pumpkins, ghosts swaying on thin strings, and skeletons scattered about. A faint scent of chimney and fog machine smoke, candy, vanilla, spice and damp leaves drifts through the neighborhood.
Happy Halloween! Here’s your special subscriber’s look into this months blog — part history, part reflection where the spirit of Halloween meets the strange afterlife of first-world comfort. What if the monsters we fear most aren’t hiding under beds, but behind screens and suburban fences? A reflection on privilege, nostalgia, and the haunting quiet of modern life.
May these words find you well, as we untangle our thoughts and explore new ideas…
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
Country of the Living Dead: How a First-World Nation Turned Its Privilege into a Ghost Story
Every October, we wrap ourselves in nostalgia, the glow of jack-o’-lanterns, the rustle of leaves and costumes, the sweet scent of childhood wonder. But beneath the flickering lights of modern Halloween lies something deeper… and far more haunting.
This month’s piece, “Country of the Living Dead,” explores how life in a first-world privileged nation has slowly turned us into ghosts of ourselves. Detached from the rawness of humanity, numbed by comfort, and haunted by the weight of our own convenience. From Halloween’s pagan roots to the cracked mask of capitalism, this piece is a mirror held up to our modern lives and a quiet question of what it means to truly be alive.
Thanks for reading and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Until next time,
Guthrie
P.s. When witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers, ’tis near Halloween.
