WHAT LIFE?

When the badly damaged Ajira plane rambled off the island and into the sky, it added another mystery as to why the passengers on that rescue flight would wind up with dying Jack in the sideways church.

The sideways world we were shown lasted approximately two weeks from the landing of Flight 815 in LA. The concert, Desmond's round-up of characters, and the church reunion occurred in the last two days. Jack died on the island apparently on the last day of the sideways world events. But those on the Ajira plane left the island (seen alive) and did not die (to our knowledge) until some time after Jack, but they were all "dead" in the church to meet awakened Jack.

It is hard to grasp the non-linear time step from island to sideways world. When Christian says the sideways realm has no past, present or future but just "now," it is not an answer with any factual basis. How can every person in the church have a different "now" but be brought together to go to the next stage of the after life?

We believe that Hurley and Ben stayed on the island for some time, presumably to shut it down. However, we know that Rose and Bernard were content to stay in their island shanty for the rest of their lives. Considering that Rose's cancer was cured by the island, this couple probably had at least another decade or more on the island. So we have people living years on the island but wind up dead in the SW church in less than a day.

Or do we?

If we look at the final chronology of events, Jack is "awakened" in the sideways world just before he "dies" on the island. From lostpedia:

Jack greets Desmond and Penny, shaking Desmond's hand. He hugs Boone. On the Island, he stumbles through the bamboo forest, passing the white tennis shoe that once belonged to his father's corpse, now worn and dirty after 3 years exposed to the weather. At the church, he hugs Hurley. Claire, Charlie, Sun, Shannon and Sayid all gather around Aaron. Jack greets Sawyer before noticing Kate, and she holds his hand as they sit down in the pews. On the Island, Jack comes to the spot where he woke up from the crash and collapses to the ground, still clutching at his wound. At the church, everyone else sits down. Christian puts his hand on Jack's shoulder as he passes by. On the Island, Jack is laying on his back on the ground when he hears a dog bark - it's Vincent. Vincent greets him and then lays beside him. At the church, Christian walks down the aisle and opens the doors, leaving and letting a bright white light fill the room. Everyone gazes at their surroundings, Jack and Kate share a glance. On the Island, a dying Jack witnesses the Ajira plane fly over head. He smiles, knowing he isn't going to die for nothing. At the church, Jack is swallowed by the white light. On the Island, Jack's eye closes. He is gone. The end.

It is revealed to Jack that everyone is dead by Christian BEFORE Jack dies on the island. Jack is told that everyone in the church has been waiting for him, that "they are all dead too," BEFORE they leave the island on Ajira plane.

Here is one of LOST's greatest paradox: you cannot be alive when you are dead or dead when you are alive.

This paradox may have been glossed over by most viewers because of the emotional bent of the concluding scenes and the sparse script devoid of explanation.

So how could anyone on the Ajira flight have a life post-island? Did the plane crash into the snow globe the moment Jack's eyes closed for the last time?

And if the passengers on Ajira flight reached the mainland safely, that would mean that each had a life expectancy of 30 to 50 years. During that time frame, would they have not "moved on" to meet new people, have new relationships - - have a different life than those months on the island?

Of course they would have had to change. Kate would have reunited Claire with her mother and Aaron. They would have returned to Australia leaving Kate alone in her suburban home. Is that a life for her? Or would she have re-connected with her husband in Florida? Wouldn't Sawyer reconnect with his daughter? Or partner up with Miles to con people with ghost story scams? As a result of their final rescue, none of the passengers on Ajira had any reason to be in the sideways church except for nostalgia. For if there lives were so incomplete, terrible, lonely and worthless in the real world, then they mentally checked out into the fantasy land of the sideways world earlier and quicker than anyone watching could have imagined.

Of course, there is another explanation. As Jacob opined, none of the main characters had any life to go back to; that is why they were his candidates. One could take that speech to really mean that the candidates were lost souls, already taken away from their mortal plain, to serve a higher purpose in the first level of eternity.

Which gets us back to the problem with Jack's life actually ending in the bamboo field on the island after the fight with Flocke. If Jack was the new island guardian, and he survived the light cave radiation, he would have been immortal like Jacob. So Jack's island "life" may be a transitory illusion.