Lost and Found

Lost.  The end. The beginning. The experience.

Yes, we did have a Lost party.  Yes, we did watch the two hour review just prior to Lost that helped build up the Lost excitement. We also watched the hour after Lost where they interview the Cast, but most importantly we watched the two and a half hours of the episode where all was not revealed - or was it?

After being enthralled with direct Lost quotations for over five hours straight, it's no surprised that after I went home and attempted to sleep my dreams were vividly controlled by Lostmania. As I lay in bed, after consuming way too much junk food and a Monster Java, my brain refused to turn off and I found pieces of the Lost puzzle floating around in my mind. The answers all seemed there if only I was conscious enough to put them together. 

Something was telling me how important Lost was.  How important was it?  No idea, but in my dream Lost was the asnwer to everything, the ending was the key to all the questions of humanity. In a Matrix-esque ending I was left to ponder on the meaning of life, death and the world in between.

What has Lost left us with? (*spoiler alert* I think) The idea that all of us could die and continue living and experiencing things such as vivid as pain, love and heartbreak can be both intimidating and relieving.  I like to think that all emotion doesn't end when we die.  Death for me has been a mixture of a friend and foe, something I've longed and dreaded when things have become extremely difficult.  Lost seemed to open the possibilities that there is something there and it might be something we have never realized but might actually have to work for and come to love.  All of the couples at the end were happy with the person they found, (after?) they died. It was as though in life they couldn't discover them in the way they were meant to and so in death they were led to them, someone they could be happy with and learn to truly love.  I guess it gives me hope in some strange silly way that the fear of death isn't necessary  if it's just another kind of life.

I wasn't happy with the ending at first, it left so many questions - Michael and Walt? What was up with them?  Why were the others after the children all the time?  What was up with the golden showers (he he)?  Why the Jacob vs. Smoke Monster story?  Was it all just a spiritual manipulation created to force people like Jack and Locke to believe in something greater than themselves?  Was it all just a tool to test the existence of faith in each person? To see at what point they would believe or give up?

And then, the question is, did they leave all the questions unanswered so that we could interpret everything in our own way?  Are we meant to apply the island to ourselves personally...to examine what impossible feats seem required for us to accomplish? To believe in? Are we are very own smoke monsters? Our own Jacobs?  And do we fight amongst ourselves, trying to release or contain the bad?  I'd like to think we are.  The idea of placing ourselves in a situation that will test us in ways we never see coming is the very essence of Lost, and it makes us think outside the box in a new way for every new episode.

I hate to claim such a blasphemy, but in many ways it seems that God has done the same to us.  We all are on our little island, fighting the "others" that we see, trying to determine who we can trust and who is looking to betray us. What we determine is ultimate evil (smoke monster) we discover may have a story of their own, and our reactions to it could be good or bad.  Yes, we all believe that Jack was good throughout, but he seemed to make stupid decisions sometimes.  He was too faithful at points (the bomb - "none of us can die") and not faithful enough at times ("the island has chosen you"). Aren't we all that way?  Do we learn to over-apply faith sometimes and under-apply it other times? I know sometimes I do.  Sometimes there is that constant reassurance "everything will be okay, that doesn't matter" that makes me placated, and I have to force myself to fight for something instead of become dormant. Other times I'm so full of doubt that I just want to roll up into a ball and forget that I'm even alive.

In the background there is always the belief that I'm special, but someone seems to be arguing with me in my head.  My smoke monster says "no, no one is special, that's just a cheat to make you believe in something" and my Jacob "No, you were meant to be here, you are a candidate, you are special"...

They are Always fighting.

I am Always Lost,

Just waiting to be Found.

Maybe it's just about finding myself...