LONELINESS

At the core of the LOST character tree was loneliness. Most of the characters were extremely lonely people with no true friends. This includes Jack, who was a brilliant surgeon, but in his back story had no friends he hung out with outside of work. 

The effect of long term loneliness on the brain and social interaction shows that lonely people tend to create a barrier, a shell, around themselves. Then, they tend to focus on negative aspects in the world around them.

One of the saddest things about loneliness is that it leads to what psychologists call a “negative spiral.” People who feel isolated come to dread bad social experiences and they lose faith that it’s possible to enjoy good company. The usual result is more loneliness. This hardly seems adaptive, but experts say it’s because we’ve evolved to enter a self-preservation mode when we’re alone. Without the backup of friends and family, our brains become alert to threat, especially the potential danger posed by strangers.

Until now, much of the evidence to support this account has come from behavioral studies. For example, when shown a video depicting a social scene, lonely people tend to spend more time than others looking for signs of social threat,  such as a person being ignored by their friends or one person turning their back on another. Research also shows that lonely people’s attention seems to be grabbed more quickly by words that pertain to social threat, such as rejected or unwanted.

Now the University of Chicago’s husband-and-wife research team of Stephanie and John Cacioppo — leading authorities on the psychology and neuroscience of loneliness — have teamed up with their colleague, Stephen Balogh, to provide the first evidence that lonely people’s brains, compared to the non-lonely, are exquisitely alert to the difference between social and nonsocial threats. The finding, reported in the journal, Cortex,  supports the broader theory that, for evolutionary reasons, loneliness triggers a cascade of brain-related changes that put us into a socially nervous, vigilant mode.

The researchers used a loneliness questionnaire to recruit 38 very lonely people and 32 people who didn’t feel lonely (note that loneliness was defined here as the subjective feeling of isolation, as opposed to the number of friends or close relatives one has). Next, the researchers placed an electrode array of 128 sensors on each of the participants’ heads, allowing them to record the participants’ brain waves using an established technique known as electro-encephalography (EEG) that’s particularly suited to measuring brain activity changes over very short time periods.

With the apparatus in place, the participants were asked to look at various words on a computer screen and to indicate with keyboard keys, as quickly as possible, what color they were written in.

This is an adaptation of a classic psychology test known as the Stroop Test. The idea is that since participants are asked to focus not on the word itself but on its color, any influence that the word’s meaning has on the participant is considered to be automatic and subconscious.

Some of the words were social and positive in nature (e.g., belong and party), some were social and negative (e.g., alone and solitary), while others were emotionally positive but nonsocial (e.g., joy), and others were nonsocial and emotionally negative (e.g., sad). The researchers were specifically interested in when and how the participants’ brains responded to the sight of negative words that were social in nature, compared to those that were nonsocial. To do this, they analyzed the participants’ brain waves to see when, after looking at different word types, their brains entered discrete “microstates,” which are periods of relative stability when a sustained pattern of brain regions are activated. When the brain enters a new microstate, this is a sign that it has initiated a new mental operation — that it’s processing some stimulus in a new way.

For the first 280 milliseconds (about one-quarter of a second) after a word was shown on the screen, lonely people’s brains entered a series of three discrete microstates that were identical whether a negative word was socially relevant or not. After that point, however, their brains entered a distinct microstate in response to socially negative words — with activation particularly notable in neural areas involved in the control of attention — suggesting that they had entered a highly vigilant mode. By comparison, non-lonely people’s brains continued to respond with the same microstates to social and nonsocial negative words for a full 480 milliseconds (nearly half a second). This difference between lonely and non-lonely people’s brains might sound subtle, but this is an important finding because it shows how lonely people’s brains are primed at a basic level to tune into social threats more quickly than is “normal.”

Because these effects occurred so early on in the lonely participants’ response to negative social words — and because this was all done in the context of the Stroop Test (where you focus on the word’s color, not the meaning) — the researchers say this shows lonely people’s vigilance to social threat is an implicit, nonconscious bias. In other words, it’s not something they’re aware of. The participants weren’t even meant to be paying attention to the words’ meaning, yet lonely people picked up on the difference between a socially threatening word like hostile and a negative nonsocial word like vomit more quickly than non-lonely people did.

In a real-world context, this is a troubling finding. When people feel most alone, these results suggest their brains are not tuned in to smiles and laughter, they’re switched on to frowns and snarls — they’re vigilantly looking out for negativity without really knowing it. This might have helped our distant ancestors stay alive back when lacking social ties was more of a direct threat to one’s well-being than it is today, making it evolutionarily adaptive. But in the modern world, it’s a stressful, unhelpful state to be in. It might even help explain why lonely people often have poorer health and shorter lives than people who feel connected and cared for.

If you take this research and apply it the LOST character base, the light is shown on the motivations of the characters. Many did see social threats all around them, even to the point of paranoia (like Ben, and Locke). Kate looked to the negative aspects of people around her, and when something got "good" and "positive," she fled that person (her husband, and Jack). In fact, some people with the mind set of negative behavior will push themselves toward more destructive behavior (such as Desmond and his ill-advised and nonsensical of the solo voyage across the Pacific to prove his true love to Penny or Charlie's spiral into drug use when his brother left the band to start a new family.)

CLOSURE

Some things end.  Some things end when you least expect them to end; friendships and relationships.

How they end may be as important as why they ended.

When one person breaks off a friendship or relationship cold turkey, this may lead the other person bewildered, confused, and in shock. If that person does not know what he or she did wrong, the pain of loss is intensified by the lack of closure.

Closure is the act or process of closing something in the a sense of resolution or conclusion at the end of an artistic work or  a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved.

The LOST experience mirrors real life in many ways. For die hard fans, the characters in the show were their weekly friends. They bonded with their stories, hopes and dreams. They were so involved in their lives that they took to the internet to debate, defend and marvel in their characters attributes and stories. So many people were going to take it hard when LOST ended just as any bond of friendship or affection ends in real life.

At least in the series, the producers were given the opportunity to wrap up what they considered the important loose ends to give the main characters a send off to the heavens.  More fans than not accepted the finale as being the resolution they wanted for their characters, their friends and themselves. The journey was not a waste of time. It was just a sad reminder that the six years together was over. Only memories remain.

In real life, some people do not get the opportunity to say goodbye in a relationship. Suddenly, a person is taken away by an accident or sudden death. Sometimes friendships fade away from neglect or fear that they may become too serious for one person. Sometimes relationships end in a heated way that leaves the parties bitter and hurt. Sometimes the pain lingers because one person in a relationship does not have the opportunity to say "I'm sorry," or even "goodbye." The lack of closure takes a greater toll than the known or unknown reason for the break-up.

Even fans who hated LOST's ending can still feel that the series and their relationship to the show ended with real closure. They know how things ended. They know the characters got together as part of their bonds of friendship. Certain characters found their true loves. It may have been overly sweet and cliche ending, but none the less, an ending.

Many TV shows are canceled between seasons, with a cliffhangers or characters in limbo. This is the worst type of fan purgatory - - - not knowing what was going to happen. Unless the show is rescued by a Netflix, Amazon or other secondary outlet, there will always be a "what if?" haunting question in the viewer's mind. That question is also pondered in real life. It is not a good feeling. But sociologists tell us that even the harshest questions about other people will fade over time.

SAD SAYID

He was put on the spot at an early age; the ability to do the dirty work like killing an animal on command. As a result of his upbringing, Sayid had a hardened exterior. He was not easy to know. His military service manipulated his skill set into an emotionless torturer. As such, he had no friends, merely comrades.

The only saving grace for our Iraqi character is that he clung to some form of personal honor to stave off the normal hatred of American eyes upon him. Those who mistrusted him did not know his back story (he never really shared the full extent of his deeds, and his own betrayal of his people by working with the American military). It was probably that guilt that led him into personal martyrdom. He could never be happy and he made it so. That is why he was obsessed with a woman he could never have, Nadia (and some would say that was because she was truly gone - - - tortured to death by his own hand.) That is why Sayid is the saddest character on the show.

He could have set a different path for himself. But he was consumed by his own personal wrought of having been controlled by so many other people that his actions became involuntary and sick. He hated himself for being himself. He knew what he was, and made that fact an excuse to keep other people at bay. When things got tough at the beginning of the castaways survival period, after confrontation, Sayid retreated to the jungle alone. He was captured by Rousseau, another bitter survivor of her own war with the island. The irony is that Rousseau's torture made Sayid realize how sad Rousseau was in clinging to a hope that she could never attain.

It seems fate had dealt Rousseau and Sayid the same conclusion: that if they were reunited with their true love (Alex and Nadia), those precious objects of affection would be cruelly taken away.

So it was his destiny to be a sad, lonely man.

On the island he gained the respect of a few people, including Jack, because Sayid had an unbelievable array of paramilitary talents. But he never really gained a strong friendship among the main characters. His cold demeanor probably influenced his time with the other castaways.

He knew he was a ticking time bomb. In the time flash arc, it was his savage state that burst on the scene when he shot (and presumably) killed young Ben. But that action had the unintended consequences of turning young, island reincarnated Ben into the monster that Sayid loathed and shot.

When Sayid himself was shot in the ironic island circle of life, he was taken to the temple just as Alpert had done with young Ben. In the temple waters, Sayid was reincarnated as an evil being. He struggled with it but knew it was his true self. He followed Flocke on his rampage of candidate murder, until Sayid decided to give up.

Sayid had a sad and useless ending on his island story. For a man with major military intelligence, taking the time bomb down the submarine corridor and NOT sealing the various hatch compartments was a serious lapse in common sense and the cause of his suicide. As a result, the entire ship was lost, including Sun and Jin.

Even in the finale, Sayid comes across with a sad result. He is paired not with Nadia, but with Shannon, a rich bitch manipulator for whom he had only a short island affair. If that was Sayid's only true love with a real woman, than that is very sad indeed. And no man on Earth could stand spending any amount of real time with the selfish and petty Shannon - - - so it is also sad that Sayid was cast to live in eternity with her.

SAD COMMENTARY ON LIFE

A recent American study concluded  that as many as 73 percent of people surveyed say they are “making do” in their relationship because their true love got away.

It appears people settle for many reasons, including fear of being alone or wanting security and comfort with any other person.  17 percent of respondents said they met their soul mates when it was too late — after they were already paired-off or married.

So many respondents freely admitted that they are "making the best of it" with their current partner. The response is "it's better to be with somebody than nobody."  It seems that settling into a relationship is more important than the relationship itself.

Most of the respondents said that are content with their relationship, but  46 percent say they’d leave their spouse or partner to be with their true love. However, experts warn that the grass make look greener, but there are no guarantees that a past true love will be unrequited in the end.

A clinical psychologists believe the couples are focusing on what they have–not what might have been–might not be the best idea. Once people make an investment in another person, there are ways of making things better so that is why a majority stay.

Loneliness is the driving force that puts people together, for better or worse.

In LOST, it may help explain why so many "wrong" people wound up with each other. People are still head scratching why Sayid wound up with Shannon when he pined for decades over Nadia in both realms. The same is true for even Sawyer, who wound up with Juliet, instead of the woman who fathered his child. And it would seem by process of elimination, Jack settled for Kate, or vice versa since most people believe Kate was more enamored with Sawyer (physically, mentally and personality wise).

The concept that a vast majority of couples never live with their "soul mates" is a sad commentary on modern society. Perhaps, it is generational as the happiest couple in LOST was Rose and Bernard, who found each other late in their lives.