WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

 AN OUT-OF THE BLUE QUESTION:

WHAT IN LOST WOULD YOU HAVE CHANGED?

 There were plenty of unanswered questions, plenty of angst about the final seasons direction, and curses about the Ending. But generally, what would you as a loyal viewer want to have changed in the original series?

PLOT ELEMENTS? 

Did the show have to have its start as a plane crash survival story? Could have it been set in a different location such as hospital, mental institution, a secluded university campus or secret military base?

Did the show have to have a mixed genre premise? Could it have been a straight drama? Or could it have been a straight action-mystery?

Did the show need to have unclear time travel rules and supernatural smoke monster elements? If you took away the Jacob and the Island story line, would LOST still have delivered on its character goals?

CHARACTERS?

Would you have pared down the ensemble cast into a smaller focus group? Would you have eliminated the Tailies from consideration? Would you have changed the Others from its Ben's cult status to something else (like pagan, primitive natives with special powers such as worshipping the smoke monster)?

Would you have not used flash backs and flash forwards to give us the main characters pre-island stories? Would you have given the broken characters a new chance to live out their lives in their set, reality pain (such as Locke and his paralysis)?

Would you have given a secondary character a bigger role in the main story? Would the Others been better served under Patchy? What if the pilot survived to take control away from Jack? 

THE ENDING?

What did you really want to see in the final episode? Did you need a happy ending or could you have lived with a bitter island bloodbath? Did you need to see a post-island epilogue of the final survivors trying to cope back in the real world (such as Sawyer maybe uniting with his daughter)?

Would you have wanted to erase the flash sideways world in its entirety? Would you like the island stories to end, in context, on the island?

Would you have wanted one last twist - - - such as Hurley in the mental institution playing with an island snow globe?  

Would you have accepted a Sopranos style ending (sudden end to black) which was considered by the show runners?

LOST IN PRODUCTION

In a 2017 article, Jeff Jensen wrote that LOST producers were banking on a massive volcano story line to wrap up the island origin of the smoke monsters, but ABC refused to pay for it.

The use of the volcano was supposed to show us how the smoke monster was created, by Jacob throwing his brother into it. In many cultural myths, sacrifices to the gods used volcanoes as part of the worship rituals. The producers wanted to use a temple with the volcano scenes, but ABC balked because creating temples were expensive.

The show did show a temple with very detailed ancient Egyptian signs and symbols. It was the place where the Man in Black took his angry revenge on the remaining Others. This temple appeared to be the root of Jacob's power over the people he brought to the island. Its priest held forth a cult in which the spirit or smoke monster could not enter until it reached human form.

A BBC article stated:

Often cultures have seen active volcanoes as the abode of gods - typically gods quick to anger.

“I think the creation of myths is essentially the human reaction to witnessing a natural process that you cannot explain, says Haraldur Sigurdsson, a U.S. volcanologist  “So you attribute it to supernatural forces and you say it is a battle between the giants and the gods.”

Was the island story a battle of angry gods, Jacob and his brother?

If true, then how could simple human beings defeat them?

The Man in Black, smoke monster, believed he was trapped or imprisoned on the island. Jacob claimed that he was the guardian of the island. Was Jacob the prison guard to MIB? Was his sole purpose not to unleash an evil spirit upon the world? The island was phasing in and out of the Earth realm to be hidden from humans, because they would be drawn into using the evil to destroy the planet?

Was Jacob bringing humans to the island a means of appeasing MIB? Instead of playing ancient board games, the two devised a game using humans as pawns.

But at a certain point, the brothers grew tiresome of their company and their mutual curse of being trapped on the island. For Jacob to be released, he would have to trick a human to become the new guardian. For MIB to be released, he would have to die which is difficult for an immortal spirit.

It is interesting that the show runners and the network were at odds on production budgets to the point where the story had to change. This confirms some skeptics who said the writers were making up the show on the fly. The fly was the network not allowing them to produce their vision.

But would have the volcano story line "solved" the ending issues?

No. Even if the whole general premise was overlaid with Polynesian mythology of volcanoes, gods and sacrifices, it does not explain the sideways world, the parallel universe, the Flight 815 plane crash and the ending in the church.

NEW ENDING

Author Maria Robinson wrote, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

It is very difficult today to do a show like LOST: a large cast, remote location shooting outside Hollywood studio gates, and a long run to develop and execute a complex story structure. Today's audience is not as patient. We live in a world of instant gratification and quick swipe destruction.

Traditional American TV networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) have lost their grip on the vast majority of viewers. Current network shows are recycled sit coms and spot dramas from the 1980s and 1990s (medical, cop shows, family comedies like Roseanne). Networks do not have the time or resources to re-invent their shows towards a younger audience.

The younger audience does not sit in front of a television set in the family living room. They are mobile, independent loners. With an internet connection, they can search and find their own amusement. The top landing spot is YouTube, where people nearly their own age have their personal channels doing goofy things teens would do if they actually went outside and played in the school yard.

As the networks got bulldozed by cable operators offering a hundred diverse channels, cable itself has also run its course. You may have a hundred channels ported into your cable box, but the choice is becoming more limited as specialty channels can no longer find sponsors. And channels co-owned or operated by major media conglomerates have started to run the UHF business model of re-runs of very old shows to fill time slots.

Cable operators last gasp was the rebellious nature of original programming at HBO or Showtime. But those outlets have now been muscled out of critic's circles by the economic power of the new platform: the streamers like Netflix and Amazon whom are pouring billions into their own original shows. Netflix's model is to run a new series maybe for a season or two, then it vanishes. The idea is to keep subscribers tuned in to "new" shows and movies. It is a disposal approach for a growing disposable society.

Just as LOST was unable to get a syndication deal because each episode was not a stand alone story, current creators have to maximize revenue streams in order to survive the next pitch meeting. It is doubtful that a show like LOST today would be green lit for no more than 12 episodes. Could LOST have been compressed into a 12 episode season? Perhaps, as the tangential filler would have to be discarded and a clearer, tighter premise on the science fiction part of the program would have been the foundation for climax and conclusion. It would have been less character driven and more story driven series. For example, Jack could have been killed off in the pilot (as the original pilot script called for), but he could have appeared throughout the show as a trapped ghost (like Michael at the end). But that presupposes that the show runners would actually make a decision on whether the island was purgatory or time-space pocket of abnormality.

But even in today's smartphone world, YouTube content creators are yesterday's news when SNS feeds are the way to get more followers that social media marketers covet. Twitter and Instagram are the current hot platforms for quasi-entertainment (or more apt, time killing). It seems there is more ambiguous to celebrity wannabe status on those feeds which must strike a chord with Millennials.

If you are a studio head or even a guy sitting in his basement with his laptop, you have to wonder what is the next bit that will be a long term trend. It is like chasing a cat in a cornfield. There will be more misses than hits. But in the current climate, some viewers really do not care. And that could be the end of highly complex fictional storytelling.

EVOLUTION

Harville Hendrix wrote, "Nature doesn't care that you are comfortable, only that you evolve."

LOST's creators continually stated that the show was more about character development than solving the myriad of  mysteries the writers threw at viewers.

In a typical character development, a person is put into an unfamiliar, often dangerous situation. The person then has to reflect on what is happening around him. He must determine based upon internal conflicts (experience, dreams, goals, etc) on how to proceed. It begins a journey of discovery, enlightenment, change and growth. Throughout the journey, he is tested, choices made, doubts created, strengths pushed to the limit to reach a final realization of one's self.

Weaved in this journey are themes we call life lessons. They can be coupled with moral tones, vices, bad choices, blind spots, naive behavior or self-destructive tendencies. But in the end, the character has to change, for better or worse, of the journey itself was meaningless. And the reader is left with a bitter taste of wasting time investing in a story with no true end.

Did LOST's main character have great personal development?

That remains an open question.

If we start with Locke as a young boy, we find that his life was a journey of mistakes, bad choices, social awkwardness and inability to find his place in society.

He was a miracle premature baby who survived his mother's car collision in rural, 1950s America. He was abandoned by his birth parents to grow up in foster homes as an outsider. He was smart, but wanted to be a jock. But he was not good enough so he fit into neither group. He became a loner. The more he grew up, the more sullen he became since he was missing the one thing other kids had: a family. So he spent much of his time trying to find a family unit. He would bounce from entry level job to job trying to find a permanent connection. But his deep seeded fears of abandonment and mistrust sabotaged most of his relationships. His fears were realized when he re-connected with his parents only to have his father steal his kidney and cripple him for life by pushing him through a high rise window.

So Locke's past contained so much baggage that he was a prime candidate for a character's "hero journey" of evolution. But did he did a hero's ending?

Sadly, no. Locke's sad life turned into a sad death.

The island "magic" apparently "cured" Locke's paralysis when he crash landed with the other survivors. He took it personally as a sign, a "miracle," a chance to be the person he dreamed he was going to be as a boy. Locke wanted to be a respected, swashbuckling, Outback, adventure-loving leader of men and lover of women.

Everyone on the island had an opportunity to shed their past and create a new self image.

In Locke's case, he started strong as being a hunter-food provider. But when the majority of the castaways gravitated toward the charismatic doctor, Jack, for survival, Locke became upset. He retreated to become a gregarious loner. Sure, he got along with many of the characters but most merely tolerated his ramblings. He never received the respect or admiration he thought he deserved.

He had an opportunity to become the leader of the 815 survivors, but Jack and Sawyer were chosen over him. He had an opportunity to become the true leader of the Others, but he could not bring it upon himself to kill his own father. 

Even when he "sacrificed" himself at ghost Shepherd's suggestion, only then did Sawyer give him faint praise after Locke turned the FDW to reset the island time skips.

When he returned to the States, Locke had several choices. He could have turned his back on the island and its harsh surreality. Or he could find himself back living a lonely existence in his new wheelchair. Instead, he was manipulated by Widmore like he had been manipulated by Ben to do someone's else's bidding. But Locke failed in his quest to get everyone back to the island.

In a seedy hotel room, Locke decided to commit suicide, a coward's not a hero's way out. Before he was about to do the deed, he was interrupted by Ben. Ben convinced him that his life still had value. That he was needed on the island. That he had to go back with him to make everything right. He had to go back to save his "friends." But after Locke slipped with the information on how he could get back to the island, through Mrs. Hawking, Ben strangled Locke whose last thoughts according to Flocke was "I don't understand."

Most viewers did not understand why MIB, the smoke monster, needed to inhabit Locke's corpse or assume his identity in order to overthrown Jacob. MIB did take Locke's memories to begin to manipulate the survivors, including those who let live after the Temple massacre. But if there was still a part of Locke in MIB's use of his memories, image or character - - - Locke failed to fight back or control MIB.

In the end, Locke winds up in the sideways church. He seems happy at the reunion, but how could he be? He sat in a pew alone. There was no one special present for him. Not his late girlfriend. Not his mother. No one. Throughout his life, Locke failed to make a special bond with any one person in order to "move on" in the after life. Locke's journey did not end in a hero's quest or salvation but as a sad footnote.

LOST BUTTERFLIES

In 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz entered a microscopically different value into his computer model -- .506 rather than .506127 -- and discovered that it had drastically altered the results of his weather prediction. His subsequent paper titled, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?", officially coined the term "the butterfly effect." It is the theory that small events can have significant consequences.

What were the butterfly effects in LOST?  What little change(s) had dramatic effect(s) on the series.

1. The rework of the pilot episode. It was the most expensive pilot produced at the time. The network was going through management changes. It decided to fire the original writer to put the project in the hands of new Hollywood golden boy, J.J. Abrams, whose show runners made a few changes to the script and filmed the first show.

If the regular production company was in charge of the series, the emphasis would have changed from being a Jack leadership role back to Kate being the lead character. It would have been more a show about survival than a supernatural/mystery series.

2. The two-show story arc of Ben's character. Ben was only supposed to be a guest character for a two episode arc. It was to show how the island would change the 815 survivors into dark killers. It was thought that after Sayid went to find the balloon crash site, and learned that Ben was not Henry Gale, Ben would have died at the hands of the castaways. It would have been a commentary on the nature of normal human beings in pressure situations. But since Ben's evil character was so good, he was written into the rest of the series as the villain.

If Ben's character was killed off, the Others series arc would have less meaning and would have probably ceased in a short time. It probably would have truncated the Widmore involvement in the story as his main rival was Ben.

3. The use of flashbacks to tell the back stories. One complaint during the series was that the characters would not ask each other basic questions or want to learn information about missions, etc. If the production team let the characters converse with each other to pull out information, secrets, motivations, etc., the series would have had a different feel and story progression. It would have been more one to one dialog driven shows than the action adventure sequences.

Many believe the flashback technique was used as "filler" to keep the series main story line from collapsing or it was a means to save production costs by using more interior sets.  But when the reliance of flashbacks ran its course, the show runners did something significant to keep the format alive: invented "flash forwards" which led to the slippery slope of the illogical sideways universe story arc.

4. Locke being able to walk on the island. If Locke remained handicapped and in his wheel chair, his character would have never been able to be the fantasy outback survivalist. If Locke remained physically unable to run around the island on missions, his character would have quickly fallen to that of a beach extra.

But the action of giving Locke a "miracle" recovery on the island (as well as a cure for Rose's terminal cancer), it set off a series of theories about the special properties of the island. But it also led to the growing complaints that the writers were not explaining the miracles or supernatural elements. This led to fans breaking into their own story camps and heated arguments on the premise of the show (whether it was real; characters in purgatory; or just all a dream).

WINNING IS HARD

Winning is hard. If you are playing the U.S. lottery, even harder. As Lifehacker explains:

The odds of having a jackpot winning ticket for the current Powerball is about 1 in 292 million. Just to emphasize how small of a chance that is, you’re looking at around 0.000000003% of buying a single winning ticket. You have a better chance of finding the last of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. Mainly because they’re fictional and nobody would care if you said you found one, so you might as well spend the $2 on a Wonka bar and eat some chocolate.

If the odds are so small, though, why do so many people play? We like to daydream of a better life, it’s super easy to buy a ticket and play, and somewhere deep down we all know that someone has to win and it could be me. If you want to buy a ticket for fun, there’s nothing wrong with that, but spending more than a few dollars on tickets isn’t worth it. Mathematically speaking, the only way to increase your odds of winning Powerball is to buy more tickets, but that doesn’t mean you should.Unless you’re willing to throw down outrageous amounts of cash, your odds hardly increase at all. 

Buying 10 extra lottery tickets only increases your odds from 1 in 292 million to, well, 11 in 292 million, which is still astronomically small.

Of course, if you were determined to earn some kind of prize and “win” the lottery, there are ways to do that. Based on the numbers from a previous high-prize Powerball in 2013, Business Insider explained that it’s possible to guarantee a “win” with some math. If you buy somewhere between 200 and 300 different lottery tickets, you’re all but guaranteed to end up with at least one cash prize. Then again, the non-jackpot cash prizes range anywhere from the most common $4 prize all the way up to the extremely rare $1,000,000 prize. So you could buy 300 Powerball tickets and guarantee a “win,” but that prize could be a measly $4. If you really wanted to cross “winning the lottery” off of your bucket list, a better approach is to buy 35 tickets that each have a different Powerball number. You’ll be guaranteed a $4 win, but be down $66. 

Even if you were already incredibly wealthy, you couldn’t even game the system to win the jackpot. You would have to buy every single one of the over 292 million different number combinations. That would cost you around $584 million and—even with this epic jackpot of $1.5 billion—would still put you in the hole. You would only get about $886 million if you took the lump sum payout (which most people do), and you would have to pay 39.6% of that in federal taxes. That leaves you with around $624 million. But that is even a myth because one would have not enough time to purchase all the required tickets.

 Furthermore, if you were crazy enough (and rich enough) to do that, you better hope you’re the only one trying because it would be possible that you would have to split the winnings if someone else tried use the same strategy, or worse, a dumb luck shmuck who waged only two bucks.

If you want to experience how remarkably small your odds of winning are first hand (and without losing any money), try this Powerball simulator from the Los Angeles Times to see how truly bad your chances are. If you’re still not convinced, financial experts state that you are around 1,488,095 times more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to the gas station to buy the lottery ticket than actually win the jackpot.

To guarantee a cash prize,  you have to buy the 300 or so tickets. At $2 a ticket, you’ll be spending $600. If you don’t live close to somewhere that sells Powerball tickets, you should consider your travel time and fuel consumption as well. Some folks drive for hours to buy tickets, and that makes buying tickets cost even more.
 
If, for example, you were thinking about driving a few hours to buy $600 worth of Powerball tickets, you could be spending closer to $700 or $800 (plus the potential opportunity cost). As Kiplinger newsletter stated,  you are far better off in the long run putting that $700 toward paying off credit card debt or student loans, increasing your 401(k) contributions, starting a savings account, or investing in an index fund that all but guarantee an actual return on the money you spent.

Experts conclude that large-scale gambling like lotteries is merely a tax on poor folks, vulnerable people, and people who don’t understand math. Essentially, it gives a sense of false hope to the less fortunate that are willing to reach out for anything that could possibly help their financial state, or trick those who don’t get the math. It’s just one more thing that can make being poor too expensive.  

However, occasionally paying a dollar to daydream about being a millionaire is harmless fun. You’re probably not going to win, but if you go in with the right mindset, buying a lottery ticket can give you a nice little morale boost for the day. Plus, portions of the money people spend on lottery tickets usually goes to something beneficial for your state like education or parks, so you don’t have to feel too bad for playing unless you are in a state like Illinois which has failed to pay its lottery winners over $600 for months due to a budget stalemate.

TURN BACK TIME

Time was the worst component to LOST.

The unexplained time skips and time travel aspects of the show still grate deep thinking sci-fi fans.

It may just come down to the use of time as a clumsy metaphor.  A metaphor is a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp. something abstract.

What could the time reversals represent in LOST?

If a normal person "could turn back time," it would mean going back in their personal history and change something that had happened. Most likely, it would have been a personal event choice of action. For example, going back to a first date and being too afraid to express yourself to your date, leaving him or her in an emotional flux that would lead to regret later on. If you only had said something clever; or kissed her on the cheek, or asked her out again, or didn't say some stupid thing . . .  these are the types of mental parasites that whittle away a person's psyche.

Redemption is the process of saving someone from sin, evil or an error. On a personal level, only one's inner self can redeem themselves from a bad path, bad decisions, or bad way of life. Usually it can only happen by personal sacrifice on behalf of another person. This was one of the themes of the show, but if one looks upon the main characters, it was a hollow theme.

Only one character "changed" during the time travel arc. Sawyer. He turned from outcast rogue into the new Dharma sheriff. But was it truly a change, or another long con of personal survival? It would seem to be the latter, because in the end game Sawyer did not want to do anything for anyone except to get off the island. However, some will point out that Sawyer did change his perception of women because of his relationship with Juliet.

Even Jack's noble sacrifice to die as the island guardian was weak. If he was an immortal, he did not need to die. He selfishly chose to end his own life because he squandered his time to re-do things with the people he once cared about. In a time loop, Jack's gnawing personal demon was the relationship he had with his father. But that never resolved itself, even in the sideways world. Being dead lifts many burdens. Or did it? Now, with all the time in the universe ahead of him, Jack stared blankly in his final scene. As his excuses evaporated, so did his drive to live and prove himself.

In reality, human events are fixed in a linear time line. The mistakes we make in the past stay as fixed events. Only remorse, love, caring and change can create a newer event to hopefully replace that past mistake. Replacing bad memories with good memories seems to be the function of good mental health. In order to do so, you need true friends and family around you. They are the people who you have been around the most in your life. They know your "true self." They are the key to turning back the clock to re-live the fond memories during current dark days. Sadly, this was not a major lesson in the show. It was more an after-thought.

THE SAME EFFORT

There is a proverb which states: We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. ... It takes the same amount of effort.

If one takes an honest, introspective look at one's self, that proverb is an accurate statement.

Effort is a vigorous or determined attempt to accomplish something; a strenuous physical or mental exertion.

So effort takes strength, focus and a goal.

The results we get is equal to the amount of effort we put into the task.

Our mind is not our best friend. It tricks us every day. It makes "excuses" that allows us to procrastinate, take risks, go outside one's comfort zone under the security blanket of making sure we don't "get hurt." It may rain today, so I won't go outside to exercise (jog, run, walk). I won't give up soda because it will give me a caffeine withdrawal headache. It takes too much time to go out and meet new people.

Those excuses are in direct contradiction to one's own personal goals such as losing weight, meeting new people, getting out of a social rut, etc. You may want to change your life but your mind and will creates road blocks to starting a plan to achieve those goals.

It seems contradictory, but it may be the last vestige of basic animal instincts in man who for self-preservation was wary of strangers, the dark, animal noises, risky paths and painful experiences.

Every person is given 24 hours each day to use as he or she pleases. Free will gives us choices. those personal choices is what controls what paths we take during our lives. Some of these paths lead to happiness and fulfillment, while other paths lead us to loneliness and sadness.

In LOST, the vast majority of main characters were going down personal paths of unhappiness.  For example, Jack chose to follow his father's career path as a surgeon, but that is not really what he wanted to do. His career path sucked the life out of him - - - turning him into a loner whose only purpose was to work at the hospital in order to get some recognition from his father.

Sawyer also chose to take his life down a dark road of revenge. He could have accepted his parents deaths for what they were, a troubled murder-suicide caused by being taken by a con artist. But there had to be something more than financial stress to cause such destruction of his family unit. Sawyer was given a chance by his uncle to become a fine young man, but Sawyer chose to copy the man who caused him grave pain. And once he fulfilled his goal of revenge, it left him hollow - - - he had led a meaningless life with nothing to show for it.

If Jack or Sawyer had put in the same effort on something more positive, a different career path, they would have been better human beings. They probably would not have been loners prior to Flight 815. They probably would have had their own happy families from the lessons learned in their own childhoods. Instead, they took the broken pieces of their lives and obsessed on them to the point of darkness.

Everyone needs to take stock in their lives on a periodic basis. Are you putting in the effort to be happy?

LOSING MEMORIES

This is a story right out of science fiction.

The BBC reported that a man who went to the dentist for a root canal left with his memories locked in on 1:40 p.m. on 14 March 2005 – right in the middle of a dentist appointment.

A member of the British Armed Forces, he had returned to his post in Germany the night before after attending his grandfather’s funeral. He had gym in the morning, where he played volleyball for 45 minutes. He then entered his office to clear a backlog of emails, before heading to the dentist’s for root-canal surgery.

“I remember getting into the chair and the dentist inserting the local anesthetic,” he said. After that? A complete blank. It is like any new memories were written in invisible ink that slowly disappears from his mind after 90 minutes.

Today, he only knows that there is a problem because he and his wife have written detailed notes on his smartphone, in a file labelled “First thing – read this."

Even the events leading up to his amnesia are highly puzzling. The dentist thought it was a reaction to the anesthetic or a brain blood vessel had burst. But other medical evaluations could not confirm a cause.

The patient could work out how to solve a complex maze, however, he had completely forgotten the skill three days later. “It was like a déjà vu replica of the same errors – he took the same time to relearn the task once more,” says his doctor.

One possibility is that this kind amnesia is a “psychogenic illness." Some patients report memory loss after a traumatic event – but that tends to be a coping mechanism to avoid thinking about painful past events; it doesn’t normally affect your ability to remember the present. However, this patient had suffered no trauma, and according detailed psychiatric assessments, he is otherwise emotionally healthy. 

The answer may be hiding in the thicket of tiny neural connections we call “synapses”. Once we have experienced an event, the memories are slowly cemented in the long term by altering these richly woven networks. That process of “consolidation” involves the production of new proteins to rebuild the synapses in their new shape; without it, the memory remains fragile and is easily eroded with time. Block that protein synthesis in rats, and they soon forget anything they have just learnt. 

Crucially, 90 minutes would be about the right time for this consolidation to take place – just as he starts to forget the details of the event. It is like the protein production just stops so memories cannot be locked in place.

This story is relayed to LOST fans for the simple reason as a possible explanation of the untold torment of what "awakening" meant to the main characters. They had to "awake" in order to move on in life. But why in the sideways world they could not remember the island past has always been a confusing bit of mythology. Instead of not allowing the memories to set in the synapses, the LOST characters' memories were "masked" by something until a traumatic or emotional event triggered the release of that mask. This falls into the category of circumstantial evidence to the premise that LOST's foundation story line was about mind control and illusion over reality.

WHAT MAKES US HAPPY?

We have gone on a little tangent, from excuses the mind gives us to this post on what people think makes them happy.

The University of Bolton (UK) decided to re-run an experiment that  originally took place in 1938.

Back then, an ad was placed in the Bolton Evening News, asking readers to respond to the age-old question, “What is happiness?” Ten options were offered where participants were instructed to rate the importance of each one. 

The  psychology professors followed in the same questions in the 1938 test.

A total of 226 people responded in 1938 and the top three happiness factors, in order, were: security, knowledge and religion. 

Eighty years later,  the top three happiness factors, in order, were: humor, leisure and security.

It is an interesting comparison:

1938: SECURITY, KNOWLEDGE, RELIGION

Today: HUMOR, LEISURE, SECURITY

Only "security" tops both lists.

In 1938, we must remember was in the midst of world turmoil. The Nazi build up in Germany, and the echos of the Great War (WWI) was still in the minds of the European nations. So security was in the forefront of everyone's mind. Also in 1938, "knowledge" as in education was the one true means of bettering oneself. The class system still had some tangled roots in England and the whole of Europe. The last 1938 element was religion, which is where many people find solace and comfort and meaning in their lives. In essence, the 1938 participants identified body, mind and soul as the means of their happiness.

Today, the news is filled with even greater world turmoil than in 1938. More nations have nuclear arms. There are terrorists attacking innocent people all over the globe. The news is mostly negative and depressing (if people actually read or view it which is decreasing among the young who are more preoccupied with technology and social media).  In industrialized modern nations, the poverty level has been raised to a point where many people are not dying on the streets. But street crime and random violence is still occurring in the streets (especially in the US). So personal security is still an issue today. But having humor to be the number one avenue to happiness is intriguing because it denotes an immediate endorphin rush. Like Pavlov's dog, humor is a button that needs to be pushed in order to bring on a laugh or smile. Some would say obsessive seeking of humor alone would mean that a person is extremely selfish, self-centered and possibly aloof to the people around them since modern comedy implores cruelty, irony and other people's misfortunes as punch lines.  More readily apparent is leisure as a means of happiness since hard working people need rest and relaxation in order to recharge their inner batteries. But leisure can only be obtained by a safety net of steady income, adequate savings, belief in good prospects ahead, in the sense of a societal normalcy and acceptance of one's life. The study found that religion came in last place in the current survey results.

The study offered a few quotes from the respondents:

“Enough money to meet everyday needs and a little for pleasure.” (1938)

“I would like a little home, not many possessions … congenial and satisfying companionship, the availability of good music and books.” (1938)

 

“Knowing that my rent is paid on time and I can afford to eat healthily.” (2014)

“Engaging in my hobbies, spending time that is free of worry … Simple things like enjoying a nice meal or receiving care and affection.” (2014)

The real interesting pull back from the study that the authors found was that the despite the  cliché, money still doesn’t seem to buy happiness after all. 

“People are realizing they can’t count on money,” said the researchers. “Just because you have a college education doesn’t mean you have a job. Just because you have a job doesn’t mean it’s going to last or you’ll be able to have everything you want with that money. So the average person has learned that just because you work hard, have an education or have training doesn’t mean you’ll have money—or even enough money. But let’s be honest—some people’s leisure activities are going to be expensive, so they’re going to need the money!”

The authors see a shift in priorities from the two studies as a favorable one. “These findings fit with everyone I speak to now. People are all about figuring out what truly makes them happy. And I think this is a really positive spin.” 

It is the desire of every human being to find happiness.  To be happy means a feeling or showing pleasure or contentment; having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with (a person, arrangement, or situation);  satisfied with the quality or standard of someone or something. The elements of happiness in one's life is needed to balance out the bad times that everyone encounters on their journeys.

TRANSFORMATION

Transformation is a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance:  such as:
• a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal.
• Physics the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process.
• Mathematics & Logic a process by which one figure, expression, or function is converted into another that is equivalent in some important respect but is differently expressed or represented.
• Linguistics a process by which an element in the underlying deep structure of a sentence is converted to an element in the surface structure.
• Biology the genetic alteration of a cell by introduction of extraneous DNA, esp. by a plasmid.
• Biology the heritable modification of a cell from its normal state to a malignant state.


Many consider LOST a trans formative series.


It created new format (back back and flash forward) of editing stories together. It revived a large core cast of main characters in a drama series (which was usually reserved to mini-series). It was one of the rare series that had both critics and viewers fanatical show worshippers. It was one of the first series to have a large, devote internet fan community dissecting the show in near real time.

The major transformations in the series may have been large, but its meanings light.

For example, the island's big transformation was it disappearance after the freighter explosion. How can an island just vanish? This was after the set-up by Daniel Faraday that his experiments showed that the island was actually in motion, moving away faster from the freighter than the rocket.  Since we know that islands are stationary objects anchored miles below on the ocean floor, it is not physically possible to make one disappear or move. The only other explanation would be that the island was not an island but a spacecraft or floating object. Such an explanation would put a different spin on what the show was really about. Since we don't have a fleet of floating islands on Earth, was it alien technology. Was the manipulation of time (time travel arc) and space (the island vanishing) the real key?

In many religions, a person on Earth will be transformed upon death into a secondary being. There are a few theorists who now believe that ancient cultures aligned their pyramid observatories to the heavens in order to possibly open star gates to the center of the Milky Way, believed to be the origin place of everything. If the human body is merely a bio-chemical machine operated by an unknown spirit, upon the end of the useful life of the machine, the spirit would be released into his natural form (energy?) Such a release (or perhaps "awakening" in the jargon of the series) is what the final transformation is the creator's vision of ourselves. We go on as ourselves in the after life. The only change we take with us is our memories.

THE QUEST

In all great historical stories and myths, there is a difficult quest that the main character must endure in order to find his answers.

A quest is a long or arduous search for something important.

In the series, various characters were looking for answers but few were truly on a quest.

Locke was an angry, lonely child - - - bounced from foster home to foster home. He had no father. He had a crazy mother. He longed to be popular, but his intelligence outcast him to the geeky group in school. Throughout his life, he turned away from applying his natural talents in order to chase the illusion of grandeur of the high school jock, or adventurous outback hunter. In the show, Locke continued on his fantasy illusion, not finding answers but running into the same societal judgments and roadblocks that angered him so.

Sayid was also an angry child - - - having to do the dirty work for his older brother. He was the one who became tormented by family honor to become a self-hating soldier. He knew he could not fit into normal society because his training had created a monster within him. He ran away from his homeland, feebly chasing a vision of his dream girl, but only to wind up in a miserable place with people weary of his background and his purpose.

Sawyer was also an angry child - - - having his parents killed by a con man's greed set him on the path of revenge. Finding the man who ruined his life became an obsession that ruined Sawyer's own life. Instead of learning from the experience, he became what he hated most: the con man. In the show, Sawyer never changed his self-preservation mode.

Most people believe the LOST mythology best suits Jack. Jack was a child who wanted the attention and admiration of his father. But he never got it. This void motivated Jack to become a miracle worker surgeon. And that got nothing from his father but criticism. So when his father died suddenly, Jack had no means to get the acknowledgement from his father. He was lost in his own psychic pit of growing despair. It was on the island that Jack chased the ghost Christian to find an answer to the hole in his heart. But in the end, the long journey led Jack not to an answer, but to a cruel, unfortunate death. There was no grand revelation. There was no grand moment of enlightenment.

It does not fit the classic pattern as used in Star Wars. Luke is also a lonely child, his parents gone. He is living on a desert planet doing mindless work. He has no prospects and has no adventure if he stays on his home world. But once his family is killed, he is set on a course to fight against the tyranny of the Empire. He joins forces with an old wizard and slowly learns the way of an ancient religion, to grasp and combine with the Force to defeat his enemies. Along his journey, Luke meets up with a cast of misfits, royalty and evil masters - - - so he has to confront danger, and defeat it in order to protect the people he cares about. Luke overcomes his sparse upbringing to become an enlightened Jedi Knight.

Jack's journey does not have all the elements of Luke's. Jack is not transformed into an enlightened individual. He would have met up with his father in the after life no matter what happened to him on the island. The people in the church were people he knew from the island, but they did little to mold him into a better person (some would say his island experience threw him into deeper darkness and despair). And what did Jack find in the end? The anti-climatic twist was that he was dead, everyone was dead, and it was time to "move on."

PAGANS & A NEW ORDER

The oral stories have generational cultural significance as the basis of traditions, beliefs and rituals. In European Pagan cultures, they had similar myths and legends about human-gods with great powers who came to Earth to influence men. In Nordic culture, Thor was one such representation.

When Christianity spread through Europe, the southern troops came to conquer and wipe out the old Pagan ways. In some areas, religious sites were burned to the ground and new churches put in their place. It was a way of erasing the past with the present. It was a means of control.

In the latter religions, god and his messengers seem to be all-powerful beings. This is in contrast to the Pagan viewpoint that their gods had tremendous power and magic, but the one thing the gods could not do was overpower Nature.

Throughout human history, when a dominate philosophy comes to power with an army to enforce its principles, weaker cultures succumb or perish. Those who did not covert, died. But over time, even some of the old ways get incorporated into the new way of beliefs (such as Pagan holiday feasts being transformed into new Christian holidays such as All Saints Day around Halloween, the Night of the Dead festival).

There is probably an application of these long standing ways to LOST.

There is a progressive "conquest" history of people arriving on the island. Each new group attempts to impose its will upon anyone left on the island. The one exception to this is the Flight 815 survivors. They did not seek to change or control the island; they wished to leave it behind. Perhaps this is the one great change (loophole) that MIB mumbled about in his discussions with Jacob. The castaways did not want to rule, but to escape. With the prospect of controlling the ultimate power, the castways wanted to merely survive long enough to go home.

There is no religious belief canon in the island rituals. There is little worship of a god (that word is not used; Jacob is called a guardian). Religion plays no central role in the story. Religion plays only a minor role in a negative way with Eko's con of impersonating his dead brother in order to save his own life. There are Egyptian temples and deep history, but the Others practice none of the sacred rites. If the show is anything, it is a secular notion of non-belief in higher powers. But at the same time, it is not about empowering the characters in their own self-belief. It is a religious paradox: those who can't save themselves, can't ask for a higher power to save them. It would seem the only theology principle at work is "Live Together, or Die Alone" metaphor. In the primordial time, when chemical compounds began to group together to form amino acid chains (and the start of life), it is that same group connection that is the lesson of island life. And just as the ooze evolved into complex creatures, so did the island character connections grow into a critical mass to allow an eternal peace.

HIDDEN MIRACLES

There are several important things captured in this image.

First, a pensive to surprised expression on Locke's face. He is looking down at his legs, which we would later learn were not functioning when he boarded Flight 815.

Second, he has facial scar above and below his right eye.

Third, he was ejected from the plane and landed on his back. Such a fall would be worse than the one from the building that caused his paralysis.

If time is not linear, but circular, then this moment in the series is a prime example of reliving the past in the present. But the one difference is that this fall from the sky reversed Locke's paralysis, which in most circles be a true miracle.

In the future, there was a deep theme of Egyptian mythology. Locke's scar could be a symbol of the connection to those stories. For example, Horus was an ancient sky god usually depicted as a falcon.
His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra, the most important god. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including a teardrop marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti, Thoth, a god the underworld.

In one myth, Horus and his brother, Set, are fighting for the throne after Osiris' death. Set gouges Horace's left eye. The majority of the eye was restored by another god magically, probably by Thoth. When the eye was restored, Horus offered it to Osiris in the hope of restoring his life. Hence, the eye of Horus was often used a symbol of sacrifice, healing, restoration and protection.

Sacrifice, healing, restoration and protection were all themes tied to Locke's character.

But the scar on Locke's face is on his right eye (the moon or underworld) and not his left (the sun). One could argue that this is reverse symbolism - - - that in the underworld non-sacrifice, infliction of pain, destruction and self-preservation are the goals. In fact, those reverse themes pair well with Sawyer's character, one of the few who got off the island alive.

For some reason, the island "healed" Locke to give him back the ability to walk and run. The purpose of this gift was to allow Locke to disrupt the groups he was associated with: first the survivors camp and then the Others. He did not restore order to these groups, but created conflict. He decided not to protect his friends or fellow castaways, but to protect the island for no apparent reason other than he saw its inner beauty. He took it upon himself to become a guardian of the island, which the island did not need for it had a powerful god named Jacob. So the island decided that Locke would be the anti-symbol of the myth of the eye of Horus.

Which means that the other survivor found waking up on his back in the jungle, Jack, would be symbolic of sun god, Ra. In Egyptian mythology, it was the sun god that took a dangerous, nightly journey through the underworld. If he was able to get through the perils and pitfalls of darkness, the sun would rise the next day. This captured the circle of life.

It was also a miracle that Jack was not severely injured when he fell to the ground. The island also gave him the miracle of life to begin his island journey. The camera focused on Jack's eye opening . . . . . . symbolic of the journey's beginning. Jack's first steps were to heal other injured passengers, to restore order in the group and protect them from the perils of the island, such as the Others attacks. It is questionable whether Jack sacrifices anything to the island (except his own life at the end of the series). As Locke's death was a small catalyst to get the Oceanic 6 back to the island, Jack's death on the island had no closing bargain. When his eye closed for the last time, the journey was over and if Jack was the symbol of the sun god, the sunrise would never happen again. The island would be no more.

When Locke arrives at the sideways church, he is in a wheelchair just as he was as he boarded Flight 815. But he is reminded that he does not need that wheelchair to enter the church. This may be the connection between the sideways world and the island plane crash. Some have argued that Locke's ability to walk on the island meant that he had died; and that Locke's inability to walk in the sideways world was his punishment for being unable to move on from the baggage he left behind during his mortal life. In both places, Locke was looking a miracle cure. But it seems only in death could he achieve that miracle.

NINE LIVES

The old saying is "cats have 9 lives." It is not really based upon any actual science, but mere observation that cats tend to get in and out of trouble in McGuffin fashion. For some reason, cats that fall off building ledges always land on their paws.

What if people had this cat-like trait?

We clearly saw Patchy, the one-eyed Other, "die" numerous times only to come back and thwart the Losties plans. That seems to be an obvious writer's ploy to surprise the viewers, and add the taint of mystery about the island (why do some people die, and some do not?)  Ben was taken to the temple and was "reborn," but Sayid was taken to the temple waters - - - died and was reincarnated as an evil minion. Locke "survived" a 10 story plunge, an airplane crash, and being shot in gut. Pretty darn lucky; 9 lives cat lucky.

Like most things in LOST, story continuity and rules are very inconsistent. Who lives and who dies is probably more attached to the emotional viewer meter than anything else.

But if life teaches us, everyone comes across events that could change their path, for good or ill. Just like in Monopoly, some people tend to get more "Get Out of Jail Free" cards than other people.

But to put a more sci-fi spin on this concept, one could look at a person's life as having one of those sub-sandwich shop customer loyalty cards: after 9 meals, you get one free. But in the scope of one's life line, the card allows 9 critical events to pass that does not cost you your life. The grim reaper clicks off those events until you run out of freebies - - - then you have to pass on.

You can reflect on your own life to remember various events that could have gone badly.

One probably does not realize that this is happening. But a few, like Patchy, who did crazy stupid and clearly suicidal things, probably did know that he would return. With that type of knowledge, one would have great power to control any situation.

You can count on your own how many of the main characters survived car crashes, mental illness, alcohol /drug addictions, shootings, falls, explosions, fights - - - before, during and after their island dangers.

If you look at the characters as counting down not time, but their 9 lives in order to get to the promised land, then that may explain the dull attitude and lack of grasping their dangerous surroundings when they flew off into the jungle on crazy missions. Their subconscious must have been pulling them through the gateway of their own existence.

JACK OF ALL TIMES

What is a Jack?

It is a playing card, the third most powerful one in a deck. It is a metal object that one picks up in a game of jacks. And it is the fictional hero in the LOST series.

In the series, Jack suits a card analogy because he had a Heart with Kate; he was a Club trying to get everyone to work together as one; he was a Diamond because he was a valuable person due to his medical skills, and a Spade, a worker who did not mind getting his hands dirty.

But throughout the various time lines of the Jack character, a different pattern emerges.

There were actually several different Jacks:

PRE-FLIGHT 815 JACK

ISLAND JACK

O6 JACK

TIME SKIP JACK

POST-SKIP JACK

DEAD JACK

Just to add a bit of confusion, they may not have all been the same person. We know that because Dead Jack was not "real" Jack but the alleged embodiment of his soul.

Pre-flight Jack was a dutiful son. He was a respected surgeon at an LA hospital. He was a miracle worker. He married Sarah, a patient, but soon jealously ruined his relationship. His marriage failed and then his professional reputation was tarnished trying to cover for his drunk father. Then, there may have been the odd Thailand/drug/runaway period of Tattoo Jack which may be the signal that his "perfect" life was going to get very, very dark.

Island Jack was still a troubled and upset person. He had trouble returning his father's body back to the States. He felt regret. But when the plane crashed and people were injured on the beach, his ER training took over and he began to lead the shocked passengers to safety. As a result, he was cast as the reluctant leader (something his father said he could never be because he could not "let go" and let patients die). On the island, he was challenged, manipulated, captured, beaten, right and wrong.

O6 Jack was not the same man before Flight 815. He put in place the great lie with an illogical construction to tell the world of their rescue which made no sense in protecting his island friends whom he had to believe were dead when the island disappeared. His life turned south very quickly; another failed relationship with Kate. He became addicted to drugs to the point of suicide.  At his lowest point, he felt determined to return to a place, the island, for no apparent reason.

Upon his return, Time Skip Jack turned into a meek follower, a janitor who could care less about changing his situation. He was resigned to his fate at that point. He saw Sawyer change in the three years since the O6 left.  Even though he had his old friends around him, he was distant and cold.

Upon the time skip to normal island time, Post-Skip Jack slugged along as a follower not knowing what to do. He was upset with the fact that he was an unwilling candidate in Jacob's game. He felt pressure to conform to someone else's rules. In order to get Jack out his funk, it appears that the danger, death and destruction elements were ramped up by the island (Jacob and MIB). Near the end, Jack relented an volunteered to be the next island guardian. He went into the cave to save Desmond and to reboot the island. As a result, he helped defeat MIB and allegedly save the world from something bad. But the cost, apparently, was his life.

Dead Jack probably had the best life of all the Jacks, which is quite ironic. Dead Jack had a good marriage with Juliet, which led to a son. Even after his divorce, Juliet and Jack were still good friends and sharing parents (even though Jack's son resented his father's long work hours and lack of interest in his life). Jack was again on top of his career path, head of spinal surgery. And just as Jack reconciles with his son, the Dead Jack story line abruptly ends at the Widmore concert when Kate shows up to bring him to the church where he finds out everyone is dead. It is actually a cruel trick that Dead Jack's idyllic sideways world life was totally fake. But Jack's reaction was equally confusing: he was merely numb by the fact that he was dead. He did not seem happy or content. He only briefly mingled with the island characters before sitting in the first pew, staring off into nothingness.

ANCIENT CONCEPTS

Many ancient cultures had elaborate burial rituals, with some of the concepts unclear to modern archaeologists.

In ancient Egypt, there were burial manuals, Book of the Dead, which were supposed to help the deceased in his or her passage through the underworld in order to have their souls reunite with their body in paradise.

The scarab beetle was a significant symbol in that culture. It is known to roll large balls of dung and depositing them in deep burrows. The female beetle would lay its eggs inside the ball. When hatched, the larvae would consume the ball as a food source. When consumed, the young beetles would emerge from the burrow. At that time, the ancients believed they were "born."

The ancient Egyptians worshipped the beetles as "Khepera," associated with the creator god, Atum. Khepera was thought to use its antenna to symbolically push the setting sun along the sky, which was directly related to the passage from night (the underworld) to the day (rebirth).

Scarab amulets were often placed over the heart of the mummified deceased. These heart scarabs were supposed to be weighed against "the feather of truth" during the underworld's final judgment ritual. Many were inscribed with magic spells. At that ritual, a person's heart, if heavy with sin, would be weighed against a feather. If one's heart weighed less than a feather, the soul could move on to paradise. If not, the soul was damned to eternal nothingness.

The Egyptians took things that they saw in nature, used them as symbols to connect with their gods, in order to bridge the gap between this world and their god's paradise after death.

The concept of mummification is another key aspect of the burial rites. Just as with the scarab beetle, a body is encased and then buried in the ground. It was that procedure that would lead to a metamorphosis from an Earthly body to change into a spiritual one that could move on in the after life. Again, the ancients saw in nature a caterpillar spin a cocoon to seemingly die in a airless pouch, only to later emerge as a "new" being, a butterfly. This is what the Egyptians thought was going to happen to them after death: that their body would be transformed into a new being - - - the five aspects of the human soul reuniting with a new body in heaven.

We dwell on Egyptian mythology because LOST itself dwelled on Egyptian mythology a lot. This was an intentional choice by the creators and writers of the series to have hieroglyphs in the temple which contained passages from the Book of the Dead. One has to assume that so much time and effort in the background words and symbols was important to understand the series as a whole.

Whether the Island's main characters were going through an underworld journey or symbolically going through a metamorphosis of their soul, mind or personality, it really does not matter in this discussion. What the Island was trying to accomplish was to give each person an opportunity to have an introspective ritual for which that person could realize a fundamental change so that they could be "reborn" and live a better life (now or in the future). For some, the future was death itself. Others, it was the opportunity to live a better, more meaningful life, off the island.

Whether the LOST writers pulled off this complex symbolism to actual character development is debatable because of the conflicting narratives used throughout the series. But seen through the eyes of an ancient Egyptian priest, LOST does contain many ancient life and death concepts.

VAMPIRE MICE

There has always been a question of why the heart of the island, which is the life force that has the properties to give life, death and rebirth, needs to be protected from human beings.

It is one of those common sense questions that has no logical answer.

Which gets us to "vampire mice." 

New medical research studies published in Science and Nature Medicine state that older mice given blood from younger rodents quickly become rejuvenated, exhibiting greater strength and memory. The concept of injecting older mice with younger blood leads to immortal comparisons with literary vampires.

The studies stated that a protein called GDF11 — also found in human blood — is behind the rejuvenating properties.  Concentration of the substance appears to decline in advanced years. 

An an unrelated study, aging and death was tied to a person's lack of blood stem cells which also decline as one ages.

These findings could be used to treat age-related diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. However, some scientists warn that stimulating the rapid regrowth of cells could possibly lead to increased risks of cancer.

The concept of "new blood" is an old phrase that embraces change. But now it has the meaning of prolonging life.

So why were guardians needed to "protect" the island? Perhaps, it was another red herring. The concept was not to protect the island but to bring young human beings to the island so the mythical light force (if it was a being) could feast upon the blood of the young to remain rejuvenated and strong.

If you add the pre-Columbian rituals of the ancient Mayan civilization which were very keen on human blood and blood sacrifices, there may be something to this notion of young blood. The Mayans used sacrifices, including small children, as a means to appease their gods. They believed that the gods provided them with everything, including rain and good harvests. In order to keep the cycle of life going, the Mayans had to offer blood to those gods.

Is it possible that the LOST survivors were used like cattle to feed the blood requirements of an alien island being? Was Jacob not the guardian of the island, but the person in charge of procuring the next candidates for the blood feast? This would also explain why there was no moral compass on the island. Those living on it lived and died in a brutal fashion. The island itself conformed its power into smoke monsters to take the appearance of humans in order to have those on the island have more conflict and blood shed. And if it was not at the level the island wanted, the smoke monster would rage out of control like it did at the Temple in Season 6.

If the characters on the island were only brought there to feed the blood lust of the island's heart, that puts LOST into a whole new, creepy perspective.

BEN'S MANTRA

Ben's story could have been the most profound change. The character was not supposed to last more than two or three episodes, but the intense evil brought to the screen kept Ben in the series to the very end. From filler arc to full time character, that was the shifting sands of the LOST story line.

The writers were themselves lost in how to keep a critical darling of daring story telling sharp and new episode to episode. In various hits and misses (see, Nikki and Paulo), Ben captured the real danger of a mad man against the basically naive and overconfident surviviors.

As an adult, Ben sought power and control because those things were never a part of his childhood. He became so obsessed with changing his depressing, measly little life that he snapped and committed mass homicide in order to become the leader of the Others.

How can a shy, innocent boy turn into a mass murderer? Then why could many viewers be drawn into his character so much to call him their favorite?

Ben was extremely possessive of the objects, information and people around him. You can see a god-like demeanor in his thought processes, much like a Sim City game player has the god-like authority to build or destroy his town and people at will.

Since Ben did not have a great childhood, he wanted the things normal children had like possessions, objects, toys and adventures. So as an adult, those lost events wormed their way into his dark mind. Instead of material toys, he collected people to do his bidding. If he wanted a fertility specialist like Juliet, he would kidnap her. If he needed a spinal surgeon, he would bribe, manipulate and torture people to get cooperation. Everything around him was his to do what he liked . . . that was Ben's world view.

But at the same time, he pledged some sort of alliance with Jacob, the island master. But we don't think Ben ever saw or spoke to Jacob during Ben's leadership of the Others. We believe that he only got the information from Alpert, and took the myth and manipulated the Others to follow him. He controlled the natives by claiming to be the word of Jacob, when in fact, that was probably a lie.

It was only when Ben actually met Jacob with Flocke, that Ben broke down and his anger swelled enough to kill Jacob with a magic knife. As such, it doomed Ben to his own island damnation until out of pity, he was spared his own death.

Whether that single act of kindness which he never had during his life "changed" Ben to really become "one of the good guys" is not absolutely clear, but he did move the side to allow Jack and Hurley to take the position he most coveted - - - island guardian. Since he could never control the one thing he desired his entire life, the island, Ben at some point was at peace. It did not make up for all the bad things he did in his life, but at least now he realized the errors of his ways. Errors that would never be punished, even in the sideways after life.

CONTROLLING THE FUTURE

We can have peace if we let go of wanting to change the past and wanting to control the future. — Lester Levinson

It is probably universal for a person to want a few basic social acknowledgements in their life: acceptance, security, friendship, love, trust or accomplishment. It is when a person tries to go to extremes to reach those goals, he or she becomes anti-social.

In all of our character studies, the most extreme spectrum may have been Ben.

His back story is cruel. For no apparent reason, his parents decide to hike through the Oregon woods on December 19, 1964 while his mother, Emily, is very, very pregnant. As a result of the walk, she goes into premature labor. His father, Roger,  panics, but is there to deliver Ben. But his mother bleeds to death, sending Roger into a spiral of anger, depression and regret. He would blame Ben for killing his mother, which is a false statement  but it would haunt and change Ben forever.

After Ben's birth, a distraught Roger flags down a car driven by Dharma leader Horus. Horus and his wife, Olivia,  help the Linus family. It is this random meeting that would lead Roger and Ben to the island. Roger was unable to cope with the pressure of fatherhood, the loss of his wife, and the responsibility of caring for an infant. He drank heavily, and could not hold a job. This increased his hatred towards Ben. 

At some point, Roger reconnects with Horus, who invites him to work for Dharma. Roger accepts the offer, and Ben and his father reach the island with other new workers. But the cruel reality of Roger's life hits him again hard, when he finds that the job he gets is that of a lowly janitor. 

Ben has an opportunity to change his life on the island. He is an quiet 8 year old boy. He is smart, attentive, and polite, but extremely shy. His social skills have been repressed because of his father's mental abuse and alcoholic rages. Ben becomes bitter about his lot in life. He longs for a normal family life, and the Dharma group, even though they are nice people, cannot substitute for his family.

Ben's life was immediately different than from the states. The Dharma compound routinely faced attacks from the Hostiles, the native people on the island. Roger, now an alcoholic, neglected his son. Ben did make one friend on the Island - a young girl named Annie. On Ben's ninth birthday, Annie carved two dolls, likenesses of the two children, and Ben kept them for the next 30 years. That same night, he saw his mother's ghost in the jungle. He later packed his belongings and went out in search of her, and he came upon Richard Alpert, one of the Hostiles. Richard was intrigued to learn Ben had seen someone who'd died off the Island, and he said Ben may be able to join the Hostiles one day, if he was patient. 

Three years later, Ben thought he found his chance when he heard that Dharma had imprisoned one of the Hostiles. Ben brought the man a  book and food (earning Roger's abuse). Ben later broke him out of his cell, setting fire to a van to distract those watching. But the prisoner turned out not to be a Hostile at all - Sayid was a time traveler from Ben's future. Knowing what Ben would become, an evil psychopath, Sayid shot Ben in the jungle, leaving him for dead. Jin found the wounded Ben and brought him back to the Barracks where Juliet tried to operated on him and  Kate donated blood. When it became clear that they could not save him, they sought the help of Alpert. Alpert told the time travelers that if he took Ben, it would be irreversible; he would be changed forever. Ben was taken to the Other's Temple, where we would later assume he would have been put into the reincarnation pool like Sayid would be during the final season.  Apparently, the temple ritual  robbed Ben of his recent memories of being shot by Sayid (but we cannot be for certain) and changed him forever. According to Richard, from this point on, he would "always be one of us."

The Others returned Ben to the Dharma camp, but told him to be patient. When the time was right, he could join the Others. Young Ben was then primed with the mental time bomb of leaving his father and the Dharma collective. It was a long ten years or so that Ben endured living at the Dharma camp after his temple rebirth. 

Ben would remain with the camp, eventually becoming a "work man" like his father. But he remained in touch with the Others, and when Widmore ordered the Initiative eliminated, Ben sided with the Hostiles. On Ben's birthday one year, he  released gas that killed all the Dharma members. Ben killed his father personally with a separate gas canister, responding to years of ill treatment. Richard offered to retrieve Roger's body, but Ben declined.
Though he'd helped defeat the Others' enemies, Ben still answered to Widmore, and the two maintained a rivalry before and after the Purge. In 1988, Widmore ordered Ben to kill a Rousseau who'd crashed onto the Island. Ben discovered she had a baby girl and spared them both, kidnapping the baby Alex and bringing her to the Others. Widmore initially ordered the baby killed as well but eventually relented and allowed Ben to raise her. Widmore had a daughter, Penny, of his own with an unknown woman from off the Island. When Ben discovered this infidelity some years later, he had Widmore exiled from the island. Ben then replaced him as the leader of the Others. As leader, Ben frequently traveled to the mainland, developing a wide network of resources. He restricted most of his people from leaving the Island and used deception and secrecy to control them. Ben found himself a victim of secrecy as well - despite being the Others' leader, Ben never got to visit the Island's Protector Jacob.  Jacob communicated only through Richard and sent Ben instructions and lists to follow. It was a bit ironic that Ben's entire plan was to join then lead the Hostiles, but once he reached that position he continued to be controlled and put into his place by an unknown man, Jacob. 

Ben would become to associate Jacob with his father. Everything Ben did for them, he would not receive the acceptance, security, friendship, love, trust or accomplishment that he craved from a father figure. This simmering torment would lead Flocke to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob, thereby changing the balance of power on the island forever.

Ben only found peace when he gave up control, his ambitions, and his personal darkness, to become Hurley's assistant guardian. When he awoke in the sideways world, filled with his past memories, he decided to stay to "work things out" with his father, Rousseau and continue to protect Alex, even though they were apparently in the after life, and Rousseau and Alex's island memories of Ben would be harsh hatred for what he did to them. Even if Ben could try to "change" that past, in the sideways world he realized that he could not. Further, he could not control their future responses when they awoke, but Ben seemed to be okay with that - - - because he would try to influence the sideways present to repent for his past by being a kind, caring and trustworthy person. But we really don't know if that would have worked.

All of the couples in the sideways church has at least a strong bond on the island. Those who did not, like Locke and Boone, were left alone. It would seem that would be Ben's fate as well because he passed on moving on with Hurley's group. So there may have remained a hint of Ben still trying to change his past by trying to bond with Rousseau and Alex in the sideways world.

If there was a lesson here it is that no matter what you do, you cannot change the past or control the future because it has too many variables.