HEART & SOUL

There is circumstantial evidence that a person's soul weighs approximately 5 ounces. This measurement was done immediately before and after a person passes on. Philosophically, death releases the soul and hence, its weight.

But man has weighed the concept of the soul since the dawn of time. Man's own origin stories, even from days of pre-religion, felt that man was more than an animal; that man had a higher purpose; that looking at the infinite stars at night - - - we had to have a sense of immortality.

It would seem logical that the soul would reside inside a person's heart. The heart is the engine that keeps one's body alive by circulating the blood and plasma to all the various organs. Literary circles have described a person as having a "good heart," or a "black heart" to characterize a personality.

Is the physical heart and the metaphysical soul work concurrently to make us special?

The LOST characters arrived at the island with hearts in various states of disarray. It must have been a burden upon their troubled souls.

One could consider that a person can only mend their heart by using his or her soul (enlightenment).

Purification rituals began from the earliest tribes and civilizations. The act of cleansing was deemed to be an important means of connecting to one's self, family, community and the heavens. To cleanse the burdens of the soul requires soul searching, understanding and change.

For whatever reason, the island was the laboratory for such soul searching. Jack grappled with his feelings and guilt of his relationship with his father. Locke grappled with his feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Kate grappled with her feelings of guilt and responsibility. Coming to terms with these basic but overpowering emotional states was the key to their character development.

LOST may have been an exercise in mending one's heart and soul. One has to look outside one's self to others in order to cure what ails you.