DAYDREAMS OR NIGHTMARES

A Japanese proverb states, "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."

Modern people are caught in a cruel dilemma. Cultures impose upon individuals a sense of what is expected of them during their lifetime. Families also impose certain structures, values and goals upon their children which may or may not be realistic. Early experiences shape future actions more than people realize, especially the psychological underpinnings of self-esteem, self-worth, shyness, openness or personal anxieties.

The biggest governor in a person's life is the hard wired defense mechanism that a person does not want to get hurt. Hurt, being physical or emotional. As we grow older, the emotional buffer grows stronger because the mental pain of rejection hits deeper.

This post will not get into whether LOST was a daydream or nightmare premise of some character(s).

It is interesting to look deeper into the proverb's claim.

The hardest thing a person has do mentally is set forth action to overcome a difficult thought.

The classic example of this is a young man getting the courage and inner strength to ask his crush for a date.  The ramifications for him are huge. If she says yes, then the weight of the world melts from his shoulders. She likes him. OK. That is the start he was looking for (nervous success to follow). But if she says no, then the young man is crushed. He let himself be venerable by asking the question with the high expectation of a "yes" answer. This experience of pain can haunt him, especially the next time a similar situation happens in his life.

Everyone's mind is a set of dominoes of these types of experiences. One may set off a chain reaction of withdrawal from society. One may set off a relief valve of wayward expectations being corralled into common sense. It is how people work out and balance the fear factor to the potential reward is how one can live a meaningful and happy life.

A happy life is not necessarily what other people give you. A happy life is what you make of yourself.

But if you are leading an unfulfilled  life, one may get more and more caught up in the daydream of a better life. In your mind, the perfect world can be created to insulate yourself from the pain, fear and pressures of interacting with real people. When a daydream takes over a person's focus and bleeds into their daily routine, the person becomes their own anti-social island. Within the confines of their dream island, nothing can go wrong or hurt them because they control the outcome.

But in real life, you don't control the outcome of events. It may be random chance, hard work or a factor of opportunity over latent skill that leads to variable results. You can do the same thing over and over again to get variable results. There are infinite possibilities even in finite situations.

But if the insulated daydream takes over you to the point of not being able to cope in normal, real world situations (which makes your work suffer, your family estranged, or become a shut-in without friends), you create your own island prison of self-contempt.

It is tough to reverse that course because a person builds up layers of defenses to keep from feeling any bad memory pain. The more the defenses, the more difficult it is to open up your mind to gauge reality from fiction.

Hurley is probably the best example of this daydream-nightmare dynamic. His parental abandonment led to deep seated pain and anxiety about his self-worth. He was depressed to the point of changing his appearance to keep people away. He became secretive. He became a wall flower. When he had the courage to ask the record store girl to go out with him, he was on top of the world until his one best friend turned on him - - - after he kept his lottery winnings to himself. Hurley lost the girl and his friend. He retreated more into his fantasy world (creating imaginary friend, Dave, to take the place of everyone who had hurt him).  But it was actually Dave's last appearance on the island that was the path for Hurley to break free of his daydream nightmare. He had to leap off the cliff of self-delusion in order to "wake up" to the reality that he is a good, nice person who had a place in the real world. People would like him. He could find new friends. He could find a good job. He could find a girl and be happy.

But Libby, his dream girl, stopped Hurley from making that great mental leap. And that is the pull of the dream world - - - it keeps one in a safe illusion of happiness even though you are hurting your chances to find real happiness.

Hurley is symbolic of the average person caught between the expectations of others and their own personal issues or demons. You want to be accepted by your peers. You want to make your parents proud. You want to enjoy what you do. But the voice in your head keeps telling you that if you take that action, you will be sorry.

The greatest regrets in life are those "what if" moments of inaction. If you act and fail, then chalk it up to experience. If you don't act (and don't get a positive or negative result), then you are stuck in personal quicksand and that opportunity is lost.

As you can tell, many LOST themes are woven into this situation, including illusion, island, regret, depression, mental issues, and friendship. The idea of self-growth being self-directed is the base line coda of human life. You cannot wait for someone to come by to make you instantly happy. It never happens that way - - - even in the movies.

EFFORT

“Don’t follow your passion; follow your effort." - - -

Mark Cuban

It seems counter to what we were told as children. Following one's passion would lead to success. The idea is that if you are passionate about something, your effort to accomplish it would be an easy.

Following one's passion seems like common sense approach to life.

Anything arousing enthusiasm is supposed to be a good thing. But passion is an emotion.

Effort is a vigorous attempt to accomplish a result.

A good example of this would be a student who wants to be an artist. She loves to draw, color and paint. It comes natural to her. But she does have the will to go out, ambition to make the rounds, or put in the long hours to get employed or meet deadlines in order to make her passion her career.

Effort is not considered an important personal tool. Technology has made productivity easy (you can look up anything on a search engine and cut and paste a report.) Smartphone addiction has made people lazy zombies who can easily waste hours doing mindless things. 

Effort requires concentration, attention to detail and focus. Only experience can drive people to attain excellence in their chosen goals.

 

PATHWAYS TO MEMORY

One drink often leads to two—and sometimes a whole lot more. Contrary to popular belief, this is not due to faulty willpower or lowered inhibitions, but rather a population of neurons in the vast neural substrate of your brain. That's what scientists at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine say they have discovered. They say alcohol changes the physical structure of certain neurons, creating a greater sensitivity to alcohol and a craving for more. 

This finding, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could have major implications for the future treatment of alcoholism.

Using an animal model, researchers were able to distinguish between two types of dopamine receptors in the neurons, known as D1 and D2.  Both types of neurons play a role in behavior and motivation. D1 is the “go” receptor, and D2 is the “halt” receptor. While it has been known for a long time that dopamine is involved in addiction, this study allowed researchers to see that D1 neurons become “excited” after periodic consumption of large amounts of alcohol, causing the brain to crave another drink to maintain that level of neural excitement. “If you drink alcohol, your brain will be changed in a way that makes you want to drink more,” says Dr. Jun Wang, lead researcher on the study.

Neurons are built like trees, with multiple "branches,” and on those branches are “spines”—the method by which neurons connect with one another. Dr. Wang tells mental floss, “After alcohol consumption we found that neurons have grown more branches, and more spines.” This means drinking large quantities of alcohol literally increases your brain’s tolerance of, and desire for, more alcohol. 

What’s especially interesting is how alcohol changes or “matures” the shape of the neural spines from a type known as “long-thin” to “mushroom” shaped, the latter of which store long-term memory. While it may seem counter-intuitive that drinking more alcohol improves your memory, Dr. Wang says that it promotes a strengthened context-based memory. “It may not change your memory so that you will remember something better than other people; these memories will be associated with alcohol drinking specifically," he says. "If someone drinks alcohol in a bar, for example, he may remember that bar’s specific location better than someone else.” And the brain will also remember the amount of alcohol consumed and desire more of it.

In fact, when given a choice, the alcohol-consuming animals who had grown increased mushroom-shaped spines in their D1 neurons showed a greater preference for larger quantities of alcohol. 
Bolstered by this information, the researchers then instilled an alcohol agonist—a drug that combines with the alcohol in the neuron’s receptors to reduce the excitability, and thus the craving. Rather than using an injection into the blood stream that would be delivered more diffusely all over the body, they injected the agonist directly into the brains of the animals to target the D1 neurons as specifically as possible. “We did observe a reduction in alcohol consumption,” says Dr. Wang. “It suggests that in the future we can target the D1 neurons and suppress alcohol consumption.”

This recent study shows how complex the human bio-organic systems are in relation to our perceived knowledge of them. The idea that neuron chains linked to alcohol consumption create branches of neuron chains to create a "memory" to reinforce the desire for more alcohol is one of those common sense face palms that science throws at us.

I once knew a medical doctor who 35 years ago claimed that the high incidents of childhood misbehavior could be linked to over-consumption of sugars by kids. His conclusion was based on his observation that people are actually addicted to things that they are allergic to . . . a chain of negative consequences from desired consumption. It was hard to get the logic around why a human body would crave things that are harmful to it. But this new alcohol study sheds some light on that organic paradox.

If experience creates pathways to memories, good or bad, and the deeper or emotional those experiences are then we can conclude that those memories will remain stronger and longer. So something dangerous, harmful or unusual could lead to strong memories - - - and then a corresponding desire to repeat the dangerous, harmful or unusual behavior in order to get a "positive" brain matrix. This is why even addicts who realize they are killing themselves continue to abuse themselves because there is a strong, organic "positive" memory associated with their excessive behavior.

RELATIONSHIPS

There is a fine line between the strong bonds of friendship to the depth of romantic relationships.

Love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection; a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. It also means a great interest and pleasure in something like "his love for football" or  "we share a love of music."

Because the two definitions overlap, it may cause problems between two individuals on what each perceives as their status together.


The word "love" comes from Old English "lufu," of Germanic origin; from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit "lubhyati" meaning desires and Latin "libet" for  ‘it is pleasing,’ libido ‘desire.’ 

We attempt all the time to please our friends. It is a means to maintain and strengthen one's friendship. We do so by sharing time together, events, memories and ideas. A good friend wants to reach out to support another friend in a time of need. 

When things get criss-crossed is when one so loves being around a friend of the opposite sex that deeper feelings begin to well up inside.  It may stun or frighten the other friend to find out that affection for each other has turned into attraction.

Affection is an emotional state of a gentle feeling of fondness or liking that can have physical expressions of these feelings such as greetings or hugs. It's roots come from Middle English and Old French from Latin "affectio" from "afficere" to mean to influence.

Closely related (and hence confusing) is attraction.  Attraction is the action or power of evoking interest, pleasure, or liking for someone or something. It is a quality or feature of something or someone that evokes interest, liking, or desire. It also comes from Middle English from Latin "attractio," from the verb "attrahere" (to attract).

Attraction is the action to cause (someone) to have a sexual or romantic interest in someone; "it was her beauty that attracted him."

The tightrope is very narrow. Friends have affection (love) to be around each other because of mutual interests, experiences and support. That is the internal emotion state. Attraction is the action of taking affection to another level (to "be in love" with another person). 

It is because these two emotional states are so close together but represent two vastly different concepts that gets people into trouble. You can only try to make someone fall in love with you. Some people try too hard. Some people don't try hard enough. Some people get caught up in a moment. Some people make mistakes confusing affection with attraction, to the point of destroying a good friendship.

Many people may find attraction the first and only means of finding true love. It may be shallow, but in a subconscious, guarded way it makes sense because we one wants to test the waters you first go to the shallow end and not dive into the more dangerous the deep end. But there is no rule against doing it the other way - - - since most couples want their lover to be their best friend.

There is little to no logic in this situation. This is an emotional gambit that can end three ways: working out, breaking up or maintaining the status quo of friendship. The sad fact is that many great friendships have been lost by the mere fact that affection turns to non-mutual attraction.

LOST AND FOUND

It may be as simple as a child's concept of lost and found.  When a child loses something they want, they cry to their parent to find it. Or replace it. Or find it again. In a material world, people do hold onto certain things tightly for personal or sentimental value, like a child's first teddy bear or blanket.

There is something comforting that strangers in public places have lost and founds, where people who have lost something may have an opportunity to regain what they had lost.

The same can be applied to LOST.

The main characters "lost" something they needed to find.

Example, Jack lost his father and he was desperate to find him.  In the process of the search, Jack himself lost his own mind to alcohol and drugs. The ironic twist to his search was that images of his ghostly father were smoke monster illusions, and that in order to find his father Jack had to die.

Hurley could have had a similar path. He lost his father by abandonment at an early age. But Hurley did not go searching for his father. His father returned to the family only after Hurley won his cursed lottery winnings. With sudden wealth, Hurley lost part of his innocence and his ability to be his simple self. People wanted things from him (his money). He became more reclusive and sad. His lost his simple life, so he went to find the answer to the cursed Numbers. He found them throughout the island - - - as premonitions of danger and pain. In another ironic twist, Hurley found the life he was looking for with Libby only after he died.

Sawyer lost his family at an early age. He vowed to "find" the man responsible for ruining his life. In another ironic twist, Sawyer's search turned him into the con-man he resented for his entire life. It led him to killing an innocent man. He was no better than Cooper. It was after he crashed on the island did Sawyer find the man who ruined his life, and took his revenge. But that did not solve the problem that he lost his life in the process of revenge. Again, he only found true happiness without deceit or deception after he died in the sideways world with Juliet.

The island could be symbolic as a lost and found box. In it, various aspects of a person's life that had been discarded or lost could be found.

But what did the characters actually find on the island?

Friendship?
A purpose?
Romance or love interest?
Self-esteem?
Moral guidance?
Death?

It seems those factors only came to light in the sideways world.

LORD OF THE FLIES

SPOILER ALERT: This post details the William Golding novel, The Lord of the Flies, which was part of the inspiration of the original screenwriter for the series LOST.

There were some clear elements of the novel, The Lord of the Flies, incorporated into Jeffrey Leiber's original LOST script (called Nowhere) and in the original series writer's guide. For those who have forgotten the story from their high school English classes, the story is set on an island where a group children have landed after surviving a plane crash.

In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
 

Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.

At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.

When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid.

The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.

Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.

The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.


Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.

The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.

Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. 

The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

Many of the key opening elements of the novel are incorporated in the original ideas of LOST: surviving a plane crash, electing a leader, finding food, building shelter, laziness, malaise, fights over what do to, people doing their own thing instead of group needs, and violence.

There are even key aspects or events tied into the LOST mythology: the island monster that terrifies the castaways; the first boar hunt with Locke taking his victory into trying to become the group leader; the inability to fashion a rescue fire; a parachutist landing on the island (or even Henry Gale the balloonist); the power struggles and lack of trust; the missions into the jungle; the breaking apart of the main group into two camps; and betrayals from within the group.

LOST wavered off the Golding story path. Instead of focusing in on the survivors, the LOST writers continually threw non-group characters into the mix to force the action. Instead of the castaways trying to build a new society, it became more of a mixed-message game of follow-the-leader.

There is a similarity between the novel and show. The boys were too young to realize the morality of their actions. Their primal instincts took over any notion of right or wrong. Likewise, in LOST, the characters did not dwell on any moral or ethical aspects of their decision making or actions. At times, the castaways acted more like naive children than grown adults. In the novel, much of the problems were self-created by the children themselves, while in LOST, much of the problems were created by the writers forcing various tangents into the main story line.

The novel concludes with a much more realistic end to the saga than the LOST finale.

A JINN THEORY

This is a Jin theory, but not a character based one.

Ancient cultures had beings called jinns who bridged between the human realm and the spiritual realm. They were described both as beneficial and evil. But in most instances, they came to people as messengers.

In Arabian and Muslim folklore jinns are ugly and evil demons having supernatural powers which they can bestow on persons having powers to call them up. In the Western world they are called genies. 

Legend has it that King Solomon possessed a ring, probably a diamond, with which he called up jinns to help his armies in battle. The concept that this king employed the help of jinns may have originated from 1 Kings 6:7, "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought there, so there was neither hammer nor axe nor and tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building." 

In Islam, jinns are fiery spirits (Qur'an 15:27) particularly associated with the desert. While they are disruptive of human life, they are considered worthy of being saved. A person dying in a state of great sin may be changed into a jinni in the period of a barzakh, separation or barrier. 

The highest of the jinns is Iblis, the prince of darkness, or the Devil. The jinns were thought by some to be spirits that are lower than angels because they are made of fire and are not immortal. They can take on human and animal shapes to influence men to do good or evil. 

They are quick to punish those indebted to them who do not follow their many rules.

In the "Arabian Nights" jinns or genies came from Aladdin's Lamp. 

There are several myths concerning the home of the jinns. According to Persian mythology some of them live in a place called Jinnistan. Others say jinns live with other supernatural beings in the Kaf, mystical emerald mountains surrounding the earth.

There are many traits of genies in the show:

1. the smoke monster could represent a fire spirit and in the end, MIB was not immortal.
2. the events on the island were important to bridge the character's sideways lives, so the island could be considered a barrier world where jinns would occupy and help humans.
3. jinns don't follow rules and neither did the characters or the show's writers.
4. characters made several references to the Devil in the show, including towards Jacob.
5. the smoke monster could take on human and animal shapes like a jinn.
6. the island characters such as Jacob, MIB, Alpert, all tried to shape the castaways to do good or evil.

Throughout LOST, there were messengers in the form of flash back visions of things on the island, dead people giving characters information or direction, but at other times the past visions turned violent like with Eko's talk with his dead brother, Yemi, who turned into the smoke monster.

In Western fairy tales, a Genie in a bottle could mean a smoke like creature with intelligence and magical powers to grant wishes. The island could have been that bottle. It's "cork" was released and then re-set to capture the smoke monster apparently in human form. And the island in many respects did grant the characters wishes - - - such as Locke being able to become an outback hunter and leader; to Jack reconciling with his father. The island could have been one great second chance granted by Jacob, a jinn, to his candidates.

DIGESTING CLUES

When the 815 survivors finally get into the Hatch, Desmond uses the opportunity to flee his bondage to the computer and The Numbers.

He instructs them what to do every 108 minutes; then tries to escape. Jack chases him through the jungle. He confronts Desmond, who remembers Jack from the stadium stair run. Desmond asks Jack about the woman Jack said he "failed," and as Jack becomes emotional while pointing a gun at Dez, Desmond says "go ahead and shoot me." When Jack does not, Desmond presses on: what ever happened to the girl? Like pulling a tooth, Jack tears up and Desmond pushes for an answer. Jack's failure is his sudden admission that he married her. The situation quickly defuses, and Desmond runs off into the jungle while Jack sulks back to the Hatch.

During the same episode, the alarm timing begins to wind down. Locke begins to input the Numbers into the computer terminal. Hurley arrives and suddenly becomes aware that Locke his repeating "his" cursed numbers. He wants him to stop. Locke continues: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 32. Hurley then changes his mind and says "go ahead." But as Locke was going to press EXECUTE, Jack returns to tell him he has the wrong number. The last one is 42, according to Desmond. Locke corrects the input, but he refuses to press execute - - -  he wants Jack to do it, but Jack yells at him that he will not push the button on faith. The button is pressed and the timer is re-set, and Locke takes the first watch.

During Hurley's first "watch," he is shown in the Hatch pantry: first gorging on an Apollo candy bar; then a bag of chips, and then he opens a cardboard box and lifts out a fully cooked steak dinner on a white plate. He takes a large bite of the steak, when his dream is interrupted by Kate who shows him that it is time to re-set the computer.

In this short, condensed and emotional episode, we have three important elements explode to the surface. First, the emotional breakdown of Jack in the jungle. This is the first time we really see Jack break from his calm, cool and collected leader role. Second, we have Locke trying to impose his will on Jack - - - blindly taking on faith the importance of pushing the buttons. Jack believes nothing will happen if the alarm goes off. This is a precursor to show that infallible Jack is wrong. Third, it puts dreams of Hurley front in center into the Numbers mystery. There was no reason for Hurley to dream about food when he had access to real food in the pantry. Food had always been the trigger for Hurley's emotional and mental depression. It foreshadows more island mental illusions, including the return of Dave.

If we look at these events through the spectrum of Hurley alone, we can postulate that Desmond could represent Hurley's desire for love. Desmond was desperately trying to win back Penny. He would risk his life to get her back. Hurley on the other hand never fought for the love of a girl. Also, Jack could represent Hurley's desire to be a strong, effective and forceful leader. These are character traits that a low-end fry cook like Hurley would want some day. Hurley's career path was stuck at Mr. Cluck's. And finally, Hurley's dream at a critical time brings into play why Hurley's past experiences (whether true or not) such as the Numbers continually show up in the series. The reason could be as simple as that the Numbers are all in Hurley's head, and the events happening to Hurley then are also happening in his head.

DESTINY

 Confucius said "It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop."

Season 6 of LOST was slow.

It was heralded as a return to the fast paced Season 1.

Season 5 ended with a cliffhanger when Juliet was sucked into the hole and woke up with the bomb near her. She hit the bomb with a rock and it was the end of the episode. To keep fans in excitement, ABC has posted a very short sneak peek of the 6th Season where an aye opens up in shock. No clue to who the green eye belongs to.

Also in the Season 6 preview, it is revealed that the big idea is "Destiny Found" and it could as well be the ultimate reason why they are all stranded on the island in the first place, not the kind of destiny that each of the characters thought. At the time, Michael Emerson told reporters that Ben's work is not done in the Season 5  finale but he is also still crossing fingers for it because nothing is set in stone in "Lost."  Juliet's comeback was teased by EW with no other details while Claire's involvement was suggested by Carlton Cuse. "Claire is a wonderful part of the show and the audience can rest assured that they will see (her) again on Lost," Cuse said. TPTB promised that with the LOST story would come back to full circle. "Season six will feel a lot like season one," Damon Lindelof teased. "The focus comes back to the characters with whom we began. We've been winnowing away everyone else who came along. The Tailies are gone, only Miles is left of the Freighter Folk and only Juliet is left of The Others. We're getting down to the end now."

So the whole set up for the final season was to double back to the beginning to focus on the first main characters and to reveal their Destiny.

Destiny is the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future. It is a   hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

What were the current events at the end of Season 5 which would set into motion the conclusive destiny of the main characters? It was the apparent Jughead explosion by Juliet - - - her death was to make things "work." But nothing worked out as expected. The island did return to his normal time frame, but the main characters were no better off than before the time skips. They had less answers to their own questions than ever before.  

And even the random fan had a few concerns going into the final season.

The Others made their importance known in Season 3 but the viewers had not been told really anything about them except  their fertility problems. The Others overall purpose and connection to the Island had not been to be revealed.  They seem to have people recruited around the world and they seem to have a limitless amount of resources. Is it all in the name of protecting the island or do they have other work to do?

After two seasons of hearing about Jacob, viewers finally got a look at him in the Seasons 5 finale. Then there is the twist that Jacob and a mysterious Man in Black may have been controlling the LOST story this entire time.  The big question is what has been the purpose of the power struggle between these two. Is it just a game between the two or do they have a higher purpose to their actions?

Just as the dynamic between Jacob and MIB remains a mystery, Widmore and Ben's relationship is obvious based upon hate. Widmore obsessed with getting back to the island and reclaiming his place as the leader of the Others. But what is so important about a tiny hidden island that would make a billionaire crazy? But, like Jacob and MIB , there seems to be an unwritten rule that prevent these two from harming each other directly. What are the Rules? Have they been controlling and manipulating people along the way for their own game?

Lastly, we learned very little about the Smoke Monster. We don't what it is or how it manifests itself. Is it organic, spiritual, nanotechnology?  And the island inhabitants, the Others, seem to ignore the Smoke Monster's origin and purpose. The open question is that is the Smoke Monster the actual controlling being on the island, and the various personal conflicts (Jacob-MIB, Ben-Widmore) are somehow to appease it.

The main characters literally fell into the Jacob-MIB saga. The main characters also literally fell into the Ben-Widmore Dharma remains story line. The 815 survivors continue to look out of place and serve no purpose in resolving these pre-existing conflicts.

So those were some of the major question marks going into the last season. It was teased as a series of events for the main characters to find their destiny. But the side stories soon consumed Season 6. Then the addition of the sideways parallel story arc created more confusion than answers. Instead of running around one circle for clues and answers, we had to run around two circles.

The only destiny found at the end of the series that viewers were destined never to find out what were the foundational theories (science fiction or otherwise) explanations for the various connections, island events, and rules of the series as applied to the characters.

DESIRES

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat. — Napoleon Hill

Many characters had strong feelings of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. Ben informed Locke that the Island was a metaphoric "magic box" where wishes could be granted. In Locke's mind, he wanted to have a showdown with his father. He believed the island granted him that wish.

But desires can also include emotional feelings, sexual wants or an acceptance to belonging to someone else. Kate had numerous sexual relationships during the series but was left with an unfulfilled desire for lasting happiness.

Desire could also be the quest for status or achievement. Charlie always wished to be a rock star, and for one fleeting year he lived his dream. But that dream collapsed quickly under the trappings of stardom. On the opposite end, Hurley tried to run away from his fame and fortune.

Maybe opposites do attract like magnets.  Charlie wanted the fame and fortune but Hurley despised it. On the island, they became good friends.  Kate was always looking to run away from her problems while Jack ran head first into problems in order to solve them. The same could be true with Sawyer and Juliet. Even people in a close relationship had polar opposite beliefs. Rose was a realist on her cancer fate, while Bernard was a dreamer looking for a medical miracle in any corner of the planet. Sayid did the dangerous, hard, dirty work while Shannon was the rich girl who would not lift a finger to help another person.

Some people believe the whole story was just about the main characters finding their "soul mates."
This generalization has too many exceptions. Rose and Bernard were already soul mates before coming to the island. Locke and Boone never found their soul mates because they were alone in the end church. 

Was the final bonding moment commonality? The reason Charlie gravitated towards Claire and her baby was that Charlie was alone in the world. He wanted to have a family, his own family. But his drug addiction and fleeting fame made it impossible for him to correct his path. Claire was also on a downward path. Her car accident destroyed her family relationships with her mother and sister. Her boyfriend dumped her. She wanted to have her own stable family life, but thought she could not do it alone. 

The one common trait Hurley and Libby had was that they were both institutionalized at a mental hospital. It was strange that Hurley never recognized Libby from their time together in the same day room at Santa Rosa when the Tailies were reunited with the beach survivors. And we really have no motivations or desires from Libby that matches what Hurley was thinking or feeling about his life.

Then again, one would be hard pressed to find anything in common between Jack and Kate or Sawyer and Juliet.  Medical professionals whose oath is to do no harm are matched in the after life with murderous criminals. Were Kate and Sawyer the best Jack and Juliet could do?

Maybe a closer analogy is that the island's wishing well was more like an internet dating/match site. There may be some good matches, but most of the output data is just random pairings.

TRAGIC RESOLUTIONS

The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. — Benjamin Mays

From a point blank, black or white, yes or no answer - - - - did the main characters attain what they were seeking when their LOST saga began?

JACK. His sole goal or mission when LOST started was to bring his father "home" for his funeral. 

In a roundabout way, Jack did have his father's funeral in O6 story arc and "another one" in the sideways world conclusion. It seems redundant that Jack "experiences" two funerals for his father, but we get the sense of no resolution within Jack.

KATE. Her sole goal or mission when LOST started was to get away from Marshal Mars and her criminal charges including murder.

In a sense, Kate got her wish when the marshal died with her secret, but she could not run away from it forever as in the O6 story arc, she was put on (a legally dubious) trial and received no punishment from her crimes. She re-lived her runaway nature in the sideways world when Flight 815 landed in LA. 

LOCKE. His sole goal was to become independent, to take charge of his own life (beyond his disabilities). 

As terrible as it sounds, Locke was crippled more by his mental fixation of abandonment and betrayal by his parents than his paralysis. The island gave him his miracle of being able to walk, and then his opportunity to become the man he never was . . . but the mental baggage of his own personality would doom him over and over again. He would get a second "miracle" in the sideways world by allowing Jack to do surgery, but we now know that was a meaningless fictional device to jump start the final reunion.

SAWYER. His sole goal in life was to avenge his parents death by killing Anthony Cooper. 

Sawyer was granted the opportunity to kill Cooper when Locke's "wish" was granted by the island's "magic box." In order to become the island leader, Locke needed to kill his father in order to become worthy (whether symbolic or real ritual is unclear). Locke could not do the deed, but he got Sawyer into the same locked room with Cooper knowing that Sawyer's rage would get the better of him. In the sideways world, Sawyer did not get any revenge on Cooper, who was a feeble old man being taken care of by Locke and Helen.

SAYID. His sole goal was to change his dark evil torturer past in order to find happiness with Nadia.

In all respects, Sayid failed in his goals. He really had nothing in common with the other main characters. The closest person to him from a purely mental background was Ben. Both had embraced the dark side of the force. But with all the pining for Nadia, including the O6 story arc, Sayid winds up as a reincarnated dark minion and with Shannon in the sideways reunion.

HURLEY.  His mission was to find the source of his problems, The Numbers, which he believed cursed his life by bringing him pain of people dying, people taking advantage of him (like his father in his return).

Hurley's blessing of winning the lottery added more mental pressure on his low self-esteem.  He could not see anyone liking him for himself because of the fame and money. At the most basic level, Hurley failed in his mission to find out what the Numbers truly meant. Even when his secret got out on the island, most people did not believe him. In the O6 story arc, Hurley was more comfortable voluntarily committing himself in a mental institution than dealing with the real world. And that fantasy escape seems to have transfixed his final resolution by ending up with Libby, a person he only "knew" for a few weeks on the island (and never had a first date until the sideways world.)

ROSE and BERNARD. To be together, until death do part.

Bernard wanted to find a miracle to cure Rose's cancer so he could spend more time with her. Rose was stoic and resolute that her cancer could not be cured so she only wanted to live out her life in peace with her husband. The island did give them that peace after they decided to get away from all the beach politics, leadership issues and dangerous battles with strangers like the Others or Widmore's men. It is interesting to note that they did not have to be "awakened" in the sideways world. One aspect of Rose's early introduction after the crash was that she knew her cancer was gone. Many assumed the island's healing powers, but a few of us thought that Rose knew then and there her cancer was gone because she was dead. Everything was going to be alright because she accepted her fate. 

JIN and SUN. Their confusion over their relationship was in part fueled by each individual's desire to run away (Jin from his poor fisherman past; and Sun from her domineering father). The open ended question was whether they had the personal resolve to run away from their past together.

Only in death on the island, did Jin and Sun truly sealed their bond (even though Jin's failure to take into consideration of their young child is a troublesome issue). They could never live "happily ever after" except in the fantasy sideways world.

CHARLIE. His pre-flight goal was to "get the band back together," but in some ways Charlie was looking for family to fill his drug induced void in his life.

Charlie never reached his goals. His overture was rejected by his brother, who suddenly had a nice family life in Australia. It was seeing that family life, and the rejection by his brother, that made Charlie "dream" of such life for himself. But he never got a chance to realize the full extent of any such relationship on the island, or really in the sideways church as he was engulfed by white light shortly after Aaron's "re-birth."

MICHAEL. His sole mission was to get his son, Walt, back into his life. 

Michael never succeeded in his goal. Walt was a stranger. Walt had issues on why his father let him go as a baby. Walt was also dealing with the death of his mother, and abandonment by his stepfather. Michael's desire to protect and save Walt from the island dangers clouded Michael's judgment so much that he turned into a killer and betrayer of his fellow survivors. As a result of his actions, Walt became bitter and estranged from his father. Michael, so despondent over his personal failures, tried to commit suicide on multiple occasions. In the end, he is literally a lost soul trapped in the spirit world of the island.

A summary of the main characters and their pre-crash goals being met:

YES: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Rose & Bernard,

NO:  Locke, Sayid, Hurley, Jin & Sun, Charlie, Michael

There is no consistent story pattern from reviewing this simple pre-crash question. It is hard to pinpoint one critical pre-crash issue that was buried in the gut of each character. Maybe all the characters were looking for a way to say they were sorry to a parent. It also seems that the sideways world main unresolved issues were transfixed just before the plane crash (which gives some credence to the parallel purgatory theories). Maybe 40% of the characters attained some form of closure in their pre-island personal issues. But that means more of them did not.

MAGIC BOX

One of the great unexplained aspects of the series was The Magic Box.

“Let me put it so you'll understand. Picture a box. You know something about boxes, don't you John? What if I told you that, somewhere on this island, there is a very large box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be? What would you say about that, John?” --- Ben to Locke.

Ben then went on to show Locke a bound and gagged Anthony Cooper who Ben claimed came out of the magic box.

When Locke pressed Ben for more about the box, Ben snapped back that "the box is a metaphor, John." Despite this, he continues to maintain that by some agency things that people on the island want or need show up. Later, when Ben and Locke entered the Orchid, Locke marveled at the mysterious technology and asked if this was the magic box. Ben retorted that it was not.

J.J. Abrams often explained his love of "the unseen mystery," using the metaphor of a mystery box. TPTB admitted that the  "the magic box" was symbolic;  stating that "the entire island is a magic box."


It would appear that the creative team drew upon the 1967 novel, The Third Policeman for the concept of their magic box.

In the novel, an unnamed protagonist and narrator is orphaned as a child (though he only states that his parents have more than "left" later on), and is sent to boarding school where he first becomes acquainted with the work of the bizarre philosopher, De Selby.

De Selby is a natural skeptic of all known laws of physics, who casually dismisses the evidence of human experience. He contends, for example, that "the permanent hallucination known conventionally as 'life' is an effect of constantly walking in a particular direction around a sausage-shaped earth, and that night results from 'accumulations of black air."

Obsessed by the philosopher's somewhat odd theories, the protagonist sets out on a catastrophic quest to publish a definitive commentary on the philosopher. He shares some of his writings on De Selby with John Divney, an unsavory man who has served as reluctant caretaker to the narrator's parents' farm and public house since their death. Divney devises a plan to murder and rob a local rich man, which he convinces the narrator into going along with, because Divney explains it is his responsibility to publish the works on De Selby - with fair backing or not.

The narrator and Divney murder their chosen victim, but Divney hides the money box. The narrator then begins spending every moment with Divney in order to discover the box's whereabouts.
The protagonist finally gets hold of the money box only to discover that the box does not contain money, but “omnium," a substance described as the essential inherent interior essence which is hidden in the root of the kernel of everything, and which is literally everything one desires. The substance called omnium therefore can create anything the beholder desires.

After finding out about the power of the magic box, the narrator has grand visions of his future omnipotence, but begins to experience strange and hallucinatory  events involving a bicycle, a robber, two policemen and a strangely elastic sense of space and time. However, the narrator learns that things created by his will and the omnium cannot be removed from the labyrinth and taken back to the outside world.


The parallels to LOST are quite clear. The Island is isolated from the outside world. It contains a supernatural energy in the light cave. It is a force that is never understood or explained by the people guarding it. The people who arrive on the island experience strange and hallucination events, many based upon their past lives. Some people seem to be re-living aspects of their lives hoping for a different result. But the infinite power of the island force creates and corrupts human beings into murder, deception, kidnapping and mind control.


If anyone could tap into the island's magic box, it could create a chaotic world.
If the power of the magic box was true,  it would help explain why the children were taken by the Others, why Walt was abducted, and why children are so seldom seen at the Barracks. Assuming the Island works like a genie: if you want something bad enough, the island will create it for you. If that is the case, then island protectors don't want children running around all the time, imagining things like dragons, giant robots, fairies, unicorns, and even polar bears.

Walt was reading a comic book which contained a polar bear before the crash. He was "special" which may mean he had an active imagination.  This would explain Ms. Klugh's comment to Walt about going back into" the room," which is believed to be the mind control Room 23 where Karl was brain washed by Ben to stay away from Alex. If Walt had a particularly active imagination that made him even more dangerous, that may be why the Others let him go off the island with Michael instead of trying to be contain or control his thoughts in Room 23.  The reason that children are not seen around the Barracks could be simple: their imaginations are a threat and danger to everyone on the island.

The concept that life itself is one large hallucination was also referenced in LOST. The prime example was when Ben was trying to get the O6 cast back to the island. In the marina, there was a boat called Illusion. The O6 had desired to leave the island, to be rescued, to get back to their lives in the mainland, only to find that their lives hollow or meaningless. The theory that the Island would draw them back could be true but it could also be that the O6 never actually left the Island itself if everyone was part of a layered and complex group hallucination.

We still don't know how the magic box actually works. What would trigger Cooper being in a car crash then suddenly transported to the island? Cooper believed he died and was sent to Hell. Locke's deep emotional desire to confront his father? To kill his father, or make him suffer? If the trigger is such raw emotion, why did Kate in a melancholy state imagine her horse? Or were all the Dharma food drops really caused by hunger pains by the Hatch crews? And how did Alpert arrive at the island when he was headed to the gallows? It is hard to believe that Jacob knew about him and desired him to be transported to the island like the Cooper situation.

The whole magic box theory does not explain Jacob's need to bring anyone to the island in the first place. If he was all-knowing, he could create anything he wanted by using the island's power. Perhaps, everything about the LOST experience was created in Jacob's mind. He is the lonely, alien, godlike being trapped protecting a supernatural element in order to keep the universe in balance. However, as a child, he had an imagination and need for friendship, adventure and sense of purpose. He created all the conflicts, all the characters, and all the events in order to occupy his mind so he would not go totally mad. Over time, he imagined a crazy mother and a brother. He imagined a conflict with them. He killed his brother but in his guilt created a smoke monster who sought revenge and escape. (If MIB was real, it could have tapped the magic box and easily "escaped" the island at any time without the help of the candidates). But it seems that the island as a child's playroom was a self-contained, padded cell metaphysically isolated from the rest of the universe.

The magic box may be the only explanation for the sideways world. When Christian said to Jack that the sideways world was created by his friends, we could not conceive how mortal human beings could create a purgatory waiting room in another dimension of time or space.  If those characters truly believed and desired to "die together" and move on in the after life as a group, then the island could have their sideways world. But it would seem that it was the characters subconscious that desired the sideways world since the characters did not know about it until they were "awakened." The whole concept of the sideways awakening still does not make much sense. If you can control your after life by not knowing you are dead, why can't you continue to live out in the fantasy purgatory instead of going into the unknown white light?

If the entire LOST experience was the fantasy world of Jacob, then the sideways world becomes even more problematic. Can an imaginary person have a fantasy life such as to create a sideways world existence?

Then what of Jacob? Did he really die by Ben's hand and MIB's cremation? Apparently not, since Jacob continued to roam the island in physical form as an adult and as a child. This gets us to the possibility that Jacob was never real. It was the Island that created Jacob. The Island itself is a intelligent being that receives the thoughts, desires, and dreams of people. As the key to "life, death and rebirth," the Island could channel those strong emotional waves back into the world. For example, if a couple is infertile they could wish and dream hard for a miracle, which may in turn be granted by the Island. The Island could also be thought of a "prayer collector," where people ask their god for intervention, forgiveness or guidance. As a supernatural being, the Island could grant those prayers. These ideas would fit into the theory that the Island was one large metaphoric magic box.


When Christian said everything was "real," in the context of a pure fantasy world that could be correct. If the Island pooled similar desires of people and gathered them in one place to interact and find what they most desired (ex., friendship), then the fulfillment of those wishes would absolutely seem real whether the person was alive, dead or a spirit seeking closure on life's regrets.


This is all well and good, but if true, the magic box execution was inconsistent and possibly flawed. With the main characters, did they actually have their dreams fulfilled by their Island experiences? Was Jack's sole wish in life to prove his father wrong about Jack not being a leader? Was Locke's sole wish in life to kill his father? Or being a outback adventurer? Was Kate's sole wish in life to stop running away from her problems and settle down? In the end, we cannot conclude that either Jack, Locke or Kate got what they truly desired; Jack was reunited with his father but the slate was cleaned, Locke's life did not end well and he was broken in the fantasy sideways world, and Kate wound up with Jack but we don't know what happened to them next.  In some ways, the sideways world was what the main characters truly desired in their miserable real lives. If that was the case, then none of them would have wanted to "move on" in the church. It would be counter-intuitive to end what you truly wished for or what the Island's magic box gave you.

There is another explanation of the "magic box" situation. Magic box could be code for hypnotic control. Room 23 was devised to alter the thoughts of individuals, apparently to love Jacob. In any cult, the control of the followers is key to the leader's power. Brain washing can occur in many forms. It could be the filter to find out who was "good" (as in easily manipulated to the island cause) or "bad" (unworthy of Jacob's good graces). That is why the Others always called themselves the "good guys." They truly believed it.

By manipulating the minds of their subjects, leaders like Ben or Widmore could get people to do criminal things in the guise of a higher calling. For example, Ben's minions could have caused Cooper's car crash and drugged him in the ambulance to transport him to the Island so Ben could "shock" Locke into becoming a loyal Other. That would not be "magic," but a complex criminal scheme of kidnapping, drugs, brain conditioning, and forced loyalty. The same plan was used to get Juliet to the Island. She was literally kidnapped, drugged on the sub, conditioned to believe her work on the Island was so important, and that she could never leave the island.


Of course, the last option is the least favorable explanation. The magic box could have been a literary trick to put in unexplainable plot twists into the story line in order to fill time from season to season. Who did not think WTH? when Ben revealed to  Locke "his gift" of a bound and gagged Cooper, the man that had caused Locke so much physical and mental pain?!


The Magic Box, whether it was real, symbolic of the leader's power or authority, or the will of a supernatural being, will never be fully known.