WE

We all make mistakes.
We can never know everything. Even with a trillion neurons in our brains, no one can know everything about anything.
We all fixate on something that other people could consider strange. A kid whose chore is to the mow the lawn won't understand why his neighbor is into master gardening.
We are all curious but not everyone acts on it. There are people who spend their entire lives looking for answers while there are other people who would rather do the minimum in the shadows to avoid the limelight of errors, setbacks and criticism.
We like mysteries but we like answers better.
We have micromanagers and macromanagers. We have those who lead, those who delegate, those who follow, and those who complain.
We have dumb representatives making dumb decisions. We have a certain amount of apathy towards real change. We are creatures of habit even when that habit is not necessarily good for you.

 So on this Labor Day weekend, I asked myself why I am still posting content on this blog.

This will be the 459th post on LOST. A modest 6,800 page views later, LOSTheory continues on. It started during the beginning of Season 6 as a means of expanding ideas that were too long for my normal fan site postings. The rev-up in the final season was supposed to answer most of the big questions that the fans had harbored and debated for years. But with more and more tangential story lines were throw at us, theories became more complex to convoluted to the point of default statement like "it must be a continuity error," or "this is just filler before the good part."

After the last episode, there were three general fan camps. One, those who thought the ending was great; that the characters got their reward; and the show wrapped up with a happy conclusion. Two, there was a group who neither cared nor hated the finale; they may have lost interest a while back or coming on board to watch the media event of the decade only to find a bait and switch ending confusing and uninspiring. Three, there was a group that really hated the ending. They were upset that the first five seasons had little meaning or importance in the outcome. There were really upset that the big questions were not answered, but more questions (like the sideways world) were created in Season 6.

I was one of those who was disappointed in the ending even though many parts of it confirmed my early theories that the show was about the after life.  I was looking for the writers to answer the mysteries that they had posed to us to figure out.  I compared it to a big time mystery writer (King, Chandler, Christie) building up a complex story line then forgetting to write the final chapter to reveal who-dun-it. I also thought that with all the build up, fan involvement, and TPTB knowing the expectations of the viewers, LOST could have done a dramatically better job with the show's ending.

Even today, I would not be upset if the show runners made the final scene a camera pan into a hospital room where Hurley's head is hooked up to a TV monitor showing The End, making the conclusion that the series was a complex dream-nightmare inside his head. I would accept that production vision of the series.

But TPTB punted the end of the series instead of standing a firm stand on what the series was all about. They would claim later that they could not please all the fans, but that excuse still does not hold water in any college creative writing course. The story started with "where are we? what is happening to us?" to "we are in a new place, and we don't know what's going to happen next."  That is not very fulfilling at any level, whether emotional or intellectual.

Since the series ended, I have bounced around trying to fill the story gaps with analysis, new ideas, old ideas, new tacks, new takes, to see if there was something major that we all missed when we first viewed the series. It seems like Atlas holding a planetary sphere on his shoulders as punishment for his defeat.

I have fallen into a habit while surfing that when I find something interesting (a quote, a science research study, an odd news article, etc.) something in my brain triggers a response of what, if any, implications of that fact or story has in the LOST saga. So I continue to explore random observations. Whether it is beneficial or healthy is a subjective matter best left alone. I have noticed that after Season 6, most fan web sites and blogs faded away within a year. I am only aware of one other fan site that is still in continuous update mode. I think that is a telltale sign that though LOST captivated a large audience for six years, it has not had the staying power in the hearts and minds of the majority of fans after the show ended. Part of the problem was that the end of the series did not solve any of the fan debates, fan theories, or fan expectations. People quickly moved on from their weekly obsession with LOST to other things, other shows, other creative outlets.

But for some reason, I continue to push the PUBLISH button for this blog like Locke in the Hatch. It is not a matter of faith, fate or science. It seems like it is a bad habit which is hard to break.