LOST LESSONS

Television is to inform, entertain, enlighten, educate and change its audience.

Some shows are cliche, formula, slapstick, dumb, aggravating, annoying, supernatural, preachy and challenging to viewers.

A good story should lead the reader/viewer on a journey of adventure, self-discovery, conflict resolution and a final life  lesson.

In the years after the finale, writers have continued to grapple with the life lessons to LOST.

Many viewers claim that LOST is one of the greatest television shows in history, but at the same time many faithful viewers were angry at the ending. Many writers believe no matter how one viewed the finale, LOST changed the way most people will watch TV and how creators of new television shows plan their story lines. 

LOST's writers created many mysteries and ambiguities which fueled the show's popularity and critical response because it seemed to be playing by different rules. Season ending twists kept viewers coming back year after year. So profound were these mysteries that thousands of websites, blogs and forums were devoted to answering viewers’ questions, as well as developing their own Lost conspiracy theories about science and faith, life and death, and everything else in between.

Just as there are various debates on how people perceived the ending, there are just as many discussions about what lessons LOST tried to impart to viewers. For example:

For the most part,  the Oceanic 815 crash survivors were all ordinary people who lived ordinary lives, with common problems and vices. Yet these normal travelers all ended up doing extraordinary things that were uncharacteristic of their former lives when they were removed from their comfortable and known existence and into the mystery and danger of the island.  We saw kicked drug habits, self sacrifice for the sake of others, and love towards significant others that had not previously been expressed.

Likewise, another lesson could be one cannot live without taking some risks. 
Characters like Hurley lived in isolated shells, fearful of society's wrath that they were different or crazy. Once they survived the plane crash, the characters had to shed their normal routines and habits in order to help the group survive. By changing their own interpersonal programming, and going outside "their comfort zones" did the characters actually grow as individuals. Yes, there might be unforeseen consequences, total failures, deadly mistakes, but the characters learned that some risks were worth taking. 

The bonds of friendship are one of the risk-rewards of living a good life. "Live Together, Die Alone" was the bumper sticker for the show.  The importance of the statement was clear: if the survivors couldn’t learn to work together and get along, they wouldn’t make it and would die a lonely death.
Relationships are what bind us together as people. Life often sucks, but it sucks a whole lot worse when our relationships separate us rather than uniting us. We need people around us who can support, encourage and empower us. Without that, we could lead a very lonely and depressing existence. In “real life” it’s true that we either learn to live together, or die alone.

From a show creative process, there were two forced lessons upon us.

First, the purposeful philosophy that "Some Questions in Life Will Go Unanswered."

Each week we loyal viewers returned to watch the new episode of LOST hoping that new clues and information would answer some our questions. And week after week, it appeared that more questions were being posed by conflicting clues than hard and fast answers.

The writers and show runners believe that there will be mysteries in our own lives that we can’t comprehend, questions of love and faith and why we did the things we did. But it’s the mysteries of life that make it such a ride. So, in one aspect, the wild ride is more important than how the ride works.

The other lesson for television producers and writers is how series should end. There is a phrase in Hollywood that a show should not "pull a LOST," meaning a controversial, confusing and perplexing end that fails to meet most fan expectations. 

It is not new that televisions shows have struggled on how to write a proper finale. For very popular shows, the last episode is dreaded like a funeral wake. It brings mixed emotions. Some had endings that fans liked, accepted or thought could have been better (such as M*A*S*H) or some that  bewildered their faithful fans (SEINFELD, THE SOPRANOS) but none had the spectrum of feelings from positive to negative than LOST's end.  Creators and show runners would simply like to deny for as long as possible that their show is ending and they think that if they simply leave things on a cliffhanger that it will sit better with fans; opposed to trying to do the honorable thing and actually write an ending to the show. There is no greater poster-child for bad show endings than LOST. It is the perfect example of how when a show betrays a large portion of its fan base, it will never live it down. There have been many lessons from LOST. One of the primary lessons from LOST is: be careful who you trust. Damon Lindelof continues to push aside unhappy LOST fans to the point of giving up defending his choice for the series finale.  

Perhaps, the real lesson between show runners and the audience is the element of trust. Trust is something that is earned. Trust is something that needs to be maintained. Trust is something that can be lost in an instant. 

It is the enormous burden,  trust. Television viewers today are investing their time in shows that they trust. They want to know that their heroes will get to live long healthy lives. LOST betrayed that trust and picked off its characters until literally they were all sitting in a church waiting to walk into the light to move on to the afterlife. Even today, the absurdity of the LOST ending strikes many fans as being hard to grasp, like getting punched in the gut until the air explodes from your lungs. In any relationship, trust is the glue that binds two souls together. For a great deal of LOST viewers, they trusted that the writers were going to give them a mind blowing ending that the greatest show in TV history had promised; a clever and neatly wrapped up package which made absolute sense and tied the mysteries together into a neat bow. Be careful what you wish for; be careful of who you trust. Disappointment is also a life lesson. For good or ill, viewers had a 6 year connection boarding on love affair with LOST. If one looks at LOST as the end of 6 year relationship,  how you reacted to the end of the series is probably how you relate to real friendships and relations in the real world.

The lasting effect of LOST on die hard viewers is probably how the show changed the way they view television today. Can they invest time on a show with many mysteries and questions, and not get burned in the end? People overcome bad break-ups; people can over come disappointment and move on with their lives. Perhaps, that is the most important lesson of all.

TRUE LESSONS

"The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson." - - -Tom Bodett

One of the purposes of literature is to move characters through storied events to find some sort of meaningful Epiphany or change at the end. If LOST was a character study in life lessons, then what can we truly glean from the experience?

1. Do Not Trust Your Own Eyes. The eye metaphor was consistent throughout the series. It was used to open and close story arcs, to filter information from various sources, and to cloud judgment. Many characters saw strange things and could not believe their eyes. Coupled with the inability to trust their fellow characters, people's eyes turned blind to the most important events in their lives such as family, friendship and love. Locke is the perfect example of this with his failed relationship with Helen. 

2. Love is More. An aspect of a character's blindness to his or her own surroundings is the fact that many characters could not understand or appreciate the love or their life if he or she was standing right in front of them. Kate is the perfect example of this - - - she avoided commitment and love with all her childhood boyfriends. As an adult, she only used physical love to manipulate men to do her bidding or further her escape. Love is more than just words or flings, it is committed action. Without a full explanation, a light switch went off in Kate's head that her true love was Jack. The moment she knew Jack was going to die on the island she knew her true feelings - - - but it was too late. She could only re-connect and share those emotions with Jack in the after life. 

3. You Cannot Change Yourself.  Each character had a deep personal flaw. Whether it was awkward social skills, inflated ego, evil or criminal tendencies, each person kept true to their inner beast. When confronted with dangerous tests or strategy, they tended to fall back on what they knew best - - - their personal flaws to struggle their way through a tenuous situation. Sayid is a prime example of this when he was confronted with danger and he was in need of critical information, he fell back on his life skills as a torturer. He kept an distant demeanor because of this character flaw. Even when he was accepted by the beach camp, he could not keep his defenses in check (and he had to leave the camp, only to be captured and tortured by Rousseau). Sayid could only change his path when he took the submarine bomb down the hallway to save (most) of his comrades. It was that moment of change, taking life over death, did Sayid have a redemptive moment. Other people are needed in order for a person to change their wayward lifestyle.

4. Power Corrupts. There is a basic human desire to control one's circumstances. People want to be able to control all aspects of their lives. What they want is what they should get. When Locke constantly yelled "you can't tell me what to do!" he was lashing out against his own inherit weaknesses. The want to be accepted as a leader of men is an important aspect of a person with low self-esteem. Ben is the perfect example of a meek and lonely child, in a bad drunken father relationship, whose fantasy is to be king - - - to make the rules, to have followers, to be worshipped by his fellow man and loved by desirable women. But once Ben got to the throne of leadership of the Others, his love of that power base corrupted his soul. With any challenge to his authority, he would lash out against anyone near him. Fear took over for respect. That fear would compound into more and more inhumane reactions to challenges of his authority. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the payoff was not their for Ben. His power was a mere illusion in a bigger game of life. But he burned down all the bridges he could have had with people who would have liked him for himself, but for his lust for power.