A BAD MAIN THEME

There is one bad theme that ran throughout the LOST story lines.

Bad parents.

The affect of parents' treatment of their child had a dramatic effect on how that character was as an adult.

Jack's father never gave him the praise or encouragement Jack needed in order to complete his socialization process. As a result, Jack was not capable of having strong relationships with other people. His displeasure for his father's treatment of him was transferred onto other people he cared about when he was an adult.

Sayid was pushed into being a man as a child. He had to kill the chicken when his older brother could not do it. Sayid was trapped into following authoritative directions. He lost his own free will to serve his superiors (his father, his army commander). As a result, he did things he did not want to do (torture people) and to give up any dreams he had for his future (Nadia).

On the other hand, Hurley's dad's abandonment of him caused Hurley to develop a severe introversion with other people. Even when he had the courage to socialize, it was with the fear of rejection and abandonment. When the store clerk he liked ditched him for his best friend, Hurley's only escape was into his own dream world, a safe place where he could not get hurt.

Sawyer's mother and father ruined his life. His mother was conned out of the family savings, and his father went nuts by a murder-suicide with his wife instead of trying to rebuild his family trust and savings. That led Sawyer to a life of crime and revenge that de-humanized him to become the person he hated the most in the world, the con man Cooper.

Kate's parents divorced when she was a baby. Her mother fooled her into believing her second husband was her father. This deception led Kate not to trust men but to use them as puppets in her own bizarre rebellion. Kate's situation led her to a life of refusing to take responsibility for her actions, and to run away from her problems like her parents did when they divorced.

Jin and Sun were opposites tied together by their hatred for their family class status. Jin fled his poor fishing village life to vow that he would become a rich man. Sun rebelled against her strict, patronizing industrialist-criminal father. She would never get the status or position in the family business because of her gender. She took satisfaction that her father could not stand her taking a poor man like Jin as her lover. But she mistook Jin's desire for wealth over true love when he turned into her father's lackey. There relationship was based more on fighting back against their parentage than true feelings for others. In a way, there childish selfishness against being like their parents was their demise. No one can believe that one parent would orphan their child by drowning in a submarine; death was better than being a single parent?

Locke's traumatic childhood was the deepest cut of all. He could not find the family that he was searching for. He was blinded by the thought of a perfect, suburban picket fence reunion with his real parents. But their loathsome self-absorbed personalities destroyed Locke for a second time. Locke was so beaten down by his upbringing that he could not see the one woman who truly cared for him. He was so bent on his past he could not live in the present. He lost his family and the one woman who loved him. He created his own destiny of being a poor, miserable, bitter man because of his parents abandonment of him as a baby.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION

The Guardian (UK) reports that the old stories from ancient Egypt will get a modern translation.

Toby Wilkinson said he had decided to begin work on the anthology because there was a missing dimension in how ancient Egypt was viewed: “The life of the mind, as expressed in the written word.”

The written tradition lasted nearly 3,500 years and writing is found on almost every tomb and temple wall. Yet there had been a temptation to see it as “mere decoration”, he said, with museums often displaying papyri as artefacts rather than texts.

The public were missing out on a rich literary tradition, Wilkinson said. “What will surprise people are the insights behind the well-known facade of ancient Egypt, behind the image that everyone has of the pharaohs, Tutankhamun’s mask and the pyramids.”

Hieroglyphs were pictures but they conveyed concepts in as sophisticated a manner as Greek or Latin script, he said. Filled with metaphor and symbolism, they reveal life through the eyes of the ancient Egyptians. Tales of shipwreck and wonder, first-hand descriptions of battles and natural disasters, songs and satires make up the anthology, titled Writings from Ancient Egypt.

Penguin Classics, which is releasing the book on Wednesday, described it as a groundbreaking publication because “these writings have never before been published together in an accessible collection."

Wilkinson, a fellow of Clare College and author of other books on ancient Egypt, said some of the texts had not been translated for the best part of 100 years. “The English in which they are rendered – assuming they are in English – is very old-fashioned and impenetrable, and actually makes ancient Egypt seem an even more remote society,” he said.

There was a heavy ancient Egyptian theme in LOST. I spent many days trying to translate the set hieroglyphs to determine meaning of the show's plots and basic premise. I always thought there had to be a reason for such difficult detail of set design with the hieroglyphs to NOT mean something important in the show mythology.

The Book of the Dead was the text that stated the ancient belief system of what happened to a person when they died (their body and soul would separate and reunite after a journey through the underworld). But this new book will translate everyday life of the Egyptians: from stories, songs and writings of average farmers to give us a view of what this society was thinking and doing thousands of years ago. I suspect it will be a fascinating read.

ROUSSEAU

LOST was filled with vague references and illusions to philosophers.

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" said philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was born in Geneva in 1712.

Rousseau left home at 16 and wandered around Europe for the next 14 years. He moved to Paris when he was 30, and took up with a group of philosophers. He also took up with Thérèse Le Vasseur, a semi-literate laundry maid at his hostel; the two began a lifelong relationship that produced five children, according to Rousseau. He placed all of them into orphanages.

Rousseau was well versed in music, and wrote ballets and operas; he could easily have been successful as a composer, but the stage made his Swiss Calvinist sensibilities uneasy.

One day he was walking to visit his friend and fellow philosopher Denis Diderot, who was in jail, and he had an epiphany: modern progress had corrupted rather than improved mankind.

He became famous overnight upon publication of his essay "A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts" (1750). The essay informed nearly everything else he wrote, and eventually he would turn away completely from music and the theater to focus on literature. In "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality" (1755) he continued to explore the theme that civilization had led to most of what was wrong with people: living in a society led to envy and covetousness; owning property led to social inequality; possessions led to poverty.

Society exists to provide peace and protect those who owned property, and therefore government is unfairly weighted in favor of the rich.

In it, he wrote: "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

His work would prove inspirational to the leaders of the French Revolution, and they adopted the slogan from The Social Contract: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

He grew increasingly paranoid in his later years, convinced that his friends were plotting against him. He spent some time in England with David Hume, but his persecution complex eventually alienated him from most of his associates.

Rousseau's character in LOST has some vague patterns to the 18th Century philosopher.
Rousseau came to the island as part of an exploration crew. She was pregnant. Her husband was an intellectual, a scientist. Their ship crashed on the island, which could only mean that Jacob brought them to it as candidates in his game with MIB. She is the second known candidate brought to the island as a pregnant woman. Jacob's own mother shipwrecked on the island centuries earlier, but she was killed by the guardian.

On the island, LOST's Rousseau lost her child to Ben's Others. In a sense, Alex was "an orphan" because Rousseau did not come back to get her bad (until it was too late). Instead, Rousseau abandoned society and lived on the island on her own. As a result, she grew increasingly paranoid in her plots to attack and counterattack against the Others. It was only after she failed to kill Sayid after capturing him did she begin to change her attitude toward her plight.

She began to work with the 815 survivors. Rousseau led the group up to the radio tower, and on the way met her daughter, Alex. She communicated with her for the first time, and Alex herself seemed curious about her. The two tied Ben up together, and headed on to the radio tower. Danielle stated earlier to Jack that she would help them find rescue, but would not be leaving herself. She said the Island is the only place she knows, and is her home.

At the native's darkest hour, when Widmore's soldiers were laying siege to the Dharma compound, did Rousseau come to terms with her motherhood. Ben was worried about Alex's safety so he begged Rousseau to take her to the safety of the Temple. On December 27, 2004, while she, Alex, and Karl were traveling from the Barracks to the Temple, they were ambushed by Keamy's mercenaries. Both Rousseau and Karl were shot dead. Alex was taken back as a hostage to be killed when Ben refused to surrender.

Rousseau was betrayed by the imposter, Ben, the faux father of Alex. She let her guard down in order to serve Ben's plan of survival. But in the end, it cost her and her daughter's lives. It was the battle of territory, the island, which philosopher Rousseau condemned as being the source of mankind's evil came to pass as Danielle and Alex's demise.

SIMULATION

One premise of LOST was that it was only a simulation of reality.

It could have been a video adventure game with the characters being avatars.
It could have been an interconnected dream experiment.
It could have been a mock mental warfare simulation by Dharma and the U.S. Military.
It could have been an imaginary dream of a coma patient.

Or it could be our reality which itself is not real.

Scientists work to find out how our world actually works.
Recently at the American Museum of Natural History, scientists debated whether or not the universe is a simulation. The answers from some panelists may be more comforting than the responses of others.

Physicist Lisa Randall said she thought the odds that the universe is not "real" are so low as to be "effectively zero."

But on the other hand, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was hosting the debate, said that he thinks the likelihood of the universe being a simulation "may be very high."

The question of whether or not we know that our universe is real has vexed thinkers going far back into history, long before Descartes made his famous "I think therefore I am" statement. The same question has been explored in modern science fiction films like "The Matrix" and David Cronenber's "eXistenZ."

But most physicists and philosophers agree that it is impossible to prove that we don't live in a simulation and that the universe is real. Tyson agreed, but said he would not be surprised if we were to find out somehow that someone else is responsible for our universe.

If someone else is responsible for our universe, then we would call those persons or things gods.

In any higher order planetary relationships, the most intelligent, strong, technological and adaptable species are the alpha species who can assert their will on the rest of the known world. In human evolution, mankind had to have come to the realization that it was the alpha species. But instead of adopting a self-sufficient, own legacy approach to species self-esteem, ancient and disconnected cultures adopted religion and worship of superior beings as being responsible for their own self-awareness and life cycles.

Some could argue that religion is a pagan belief system because they did not have the means to investigate their true world. Except, that ancient cultures did have the brain power to solve and predict thousand years of  astronomical cycles with the accuracy of our current atomic clocks. Ancient people were more well versed in nature and the effect of cycles on human existence. They were the first to understand and to ponder the question of whether we are alone in the universe.

Ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids in 20 years. Our modern technology cannot replicate that feat. Generally, the public does not think ancients were very advanced in their thinking. But they pondered the same "big" questions we do today.

ADULT FRIENDSHIPS

A person has the most friends when they are young. Elementary school brings together hundreds of kids and sorts them into classes of 30 or so individuals. Team sports brings together more opportunity to add to the mix of individuals. Friendships form because kids work and play in the same environment, the school and the neighborhood. They are in contact with each other on an almost daily basis.

But as we grow older, friendships change like our individual interests. We may not realize at the time that time itself has begun to cull the friendship herd. You do not have enough hours in the day to socialize with everyone you know. Subsets of friends become more important to you.

Then, hormones take over and attraction to the opposite sex takes priority over the past. This further defines the parameters of one's social circle. Some women want their boyfriend's full and complete attention and affection. Some men want to maintain a level of freedom, going out with the guys to play sports or hang out. Everyone learns to find a balance between old friendships and demands of their most personal relationships.

Things change again when a person is out in "the real world." A job becomes a time consuming task master. Marriage and a family suddenly takes up all the old "free time." There is always something to do in one's home - - - from chores, cleaning, maintenance, kids activities and spousal duties. Even time alone on vacation becomes a logistics project. But those are the strongest bonds that can be made by an individual, in a family unit.

It is rare for adults to make many "new" friends. Colleagues at work may or may not get beyond the casual, professional co-worker status because everyone in the work place has settled into their own off-hours personal routine and lifestyle. It is harder for single people in the work place to find new deep bonds because most companies have anti-fraternization policies. You are in the work place to serve the company objectives and not to find your soul mate.

So how do adults find new adult friends? Instead of feeling sorry for one's self, or accepting the negative habits of one's daily routine, an adult needs to "work" on expanding their horizons, forcing themselves to go out and meet new people at events or places that interest them. The easiest way to open a conversation with a stranger is to have something in common to start with . . . whether it is at a charity event, an art gallery opening, a play or a coffee shop. It is not just introverts that have problems overcoming the fear of rejection when meeting new people. Extroverts have to check their energy levels so as to stop from coming off as a blow-hard or bragger. Everyone knows that first impressions (within a minute or two) are the most important message signals between people. That added pressure to be liked also adds an equal level of anxiety. It is like an NFL kicker lining up a 55 yard field goal to win the game, but this time it is a personal game of life.

You cannot make someone like you or to be your friend. The physics of force (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) does not work in personal relationships. One can forcefully try to impress another person, but that may not give back an equal level of attraction, affection or curiosity. In some situations, when a person "tries too hard," it actually repels a person away.

People are creatures of their own comfort levels. However, if a comfort level in dealing with other people is set so low as to become a hermit, then it creates a level of distrust, depression, loneliness and desperation. Some people then lock themselves in their own fantasy worlds because they cannot emotionally cope with the real world (or the perception of how they have been treated by others). For every time a person turns down a friendship offer, it is like a knife being plunged between two ribs. We all get that Life is hard. It is full of choices and demands. Everyone's path is a different quest for the same benefits of acknowledgement, acceptance, appreciation, admiration and affection.

An article from Fast Company magazine tackled the issue of making adult friendships.

It stated that while social circles increase through early adulthood, friendship networks peak and start to decrease as you move through your twenties, according to a 2013 study published in Psychological Bulletin.  Researchers found that the drop in friendships was often due to marriage, parenthood, and a desire to focus on closer relationships.

Unfortunately close relationships aren’t guaranteed to last; a study by Utrecht University.  It found that we lose half our close friends every seven years and replace them with new relationships.

Factors include life changes such as moves, career transitions, relationship changes, and different life stages bring a shift in our friendships and frequently leave people  drifting apart. Researchers at BYU found that having too few friends is the equivalent mortality risk to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is riskier than obesity.

"When friendships themselves are healthy, they relieve stress, which is extremely beneficial for health. Most people find it hard to create a deep and meaningful friendship in adulthood, but it’s not so hard if you know what to do." says Robert Epstein, of the American Institute for Behavior Research and Technology.
 
To cultivate new friends, a person needs consistency. People like to have friends around for whom they can count on in good times and bad. In children, it is almost automatic because you go to school, summer camp and play outside with the other kids in the neighborhood until dinner is ready. Adults rarely have that kind of consistency outside of work.

Counselors suggests joining groups that meet on a regular basis, such as a associations, networking groups, book clubs, classes and workshop because when you join a group, the consistency is built in; people are already showing up without you having to invite them.

The trick is that the friendship is limited to its "container"—the group—until someone initiates gathering outside of it.  If friendships aren’t practiced outside of the container, they will most die when the activity or class ends. In other words, being friendly within the confines of a group does not equate to true friendship until you move a relationship outside the parameters of the initial contact group.

Counselors also think that one can use  friendship containers as long as possible, but the goal is to move out of them. Start small. Invite work friends out for lunch, happy hour or over to watch the game. The idea is to practice doing other stuff together, and glue more pieces of your lives to each other,. It can take six to eight experiences with someone before you feel like you made a friend.

To deepen relationships, research says you must be willing to be open yourself up to personal topics and disclosures. Vulnerability is the key to emotional bonding, without which relationships tend to feel superficial and meaningless.

Children are naturally put into situations in which they feel vulnerable, such as school, sporting events or on stage in front of a crowded room of parents and classmates. Adults should look for similar scenarios.

If you can put yourself and potential friends in a place of vulnerability, people tend feel needy and provide occasions for other people to provide comfort or support. An example would be to volunteer or get part-time work at a hospital or a charity.

There are times where life circumstances can lead to friendships. A single experience—such as meeting on a vacation—can produce a deep friendship that lasts a lifetime because the experience itself opens people up to share their experiences, opinions and goals. Strangers that become humanized in the eye of someone are no longer strangers. The mind's protective mechanism for protecting against danger is muted by trust.

When you are building friendships, it is important to, work hard to keep the communication upbeat. "Be conscious about the value and joy you're adding to the other person," counselors advise. And that is what friendships are about: adding positive value to a person's life. The quality of friendships help bring out the best in an individual. It is that mutuality of friendship that helps develop close bonds.

This site has written in the past about the main LOST characters and friendships. If there was a takeaway from the Ending would be the reunion was symbolic representation of the characters mutual friendships. And the series journey could be summed up as the path toward true friendships.

A common trait of the main characters was a lack of pre-island friends.

Jack apparently had no real friends. Even when he stood up to the bullies in the schoolyard, and got beaten badly for it, no one stood up for him. It seems that Jack had no siblings. His father was not a friend, but a rival. Even at the hospital, it appeared that Jack was friendly with his colleagues but spent no time with anyone outside of work. And it also was shown that Jack did not have a social life outside of the hospital. It was his "miracle" surgery for Sarah that gave him a girlfriend, then a spouse, then a bitter divorce because Jack lacked the social skills to handle a marital friendship.

Sawyer also appears to be a single child. When his parents were killed, Sawyer is comforted by his uncle. We can assume that Sawyer was then raised with his cousins, but there was no lasting bonds between family members. This was probably because Sawyer had vowed to kill the man that caused his family turmoil. As a result, he turned himself into a lone wolf, an avenger. As a con man, he purposely kept his personal life from his professional thefts. The closest thing he had to a relationship was the ill-fitting, ill-advised fling with Cassiday, one of his marks gone bad. He left her and his infant child to complete his quest of vengeance. We can assume that when Sawyer left the island, he did not return to have a life or relationship with Cassiday since she was not with him in his final journey at the church reunion.

Kate was a popular child because she was the typical girl-next-door, tomboy.We know of one childhood friend, Tom Brennan, the boy who got in trouble with her when she tried to steal a lunchbox. Later, when Kate returned to visit her mother in the hospital, Tom, now a married doctor with a small son, helped Kate get past security. When she confronted her mother seeking support for what she had done (killed her father in an explosion), her mother yelled for security. In the police chase, Tom was killed by a police bullet. One could assume that Kate, an only child, placed her mother as her best friend. When all of her classmates moved on with their lives and their dreams, Kate did not grow or leave her mother's side. Tom, who clearly believed Kate was his first puppy love, did not realize that Kate was not a true friend but merely used him like she did with the other men in her life on the run. She came close to finding friendship with another broken woman, Cassiday, who helped cause a diversion for Kate's escape. Kate never knew of Cassiday's relationship with Sawyer, but Cassiday and her shared one thing in common: the free spirit adventure of living near the edge.

Locke was another only child. But his case was different. He was abandoned by his parents at birth. His mother was institutionalized for mental illness. His father fled to be a con man, and eventually destroying Sawyer's family in the process. Locke always pushed to fit in. In school, he wanted to be part of the "popular" group which would have been the jocks. But his intellect was more science. When counseled to follow an academic path, Locke rebelled to find himself outside any group: academic or sports. He was moved to various foster homes, but never had strong relationships with the other children in those households. Throughout his life, he continued to try to find a substitute family to the discouragement of making normal, traditional friends. He would work odd jobs and have colleagues at work, but we never saw him interact with co-workers outside the work place. Locke was a true loaner but also a odd dreamer. He was quick to abandon a situation if it did not work out like he thought it should. He felt trapped and cursed by Life itself. He thought joining a commune would bring him the sense of family and belonging. But even that was a bitter illusion (as the commune was merely a front from drug manufacturer and distribution.) The only person who would accept him was Helen, a woman he met at an anger management meeting. They began to have a relationship outside of the group. Within six months, the romance had blossomed to the point where Locke gave her a key to his apartment. However, Helen knew that Locke was obsessed with tracking down his father and establishing a potential disappointing relationship with him. Helen accepted the key only if Locke would abandon is mission to connect with his father. Locke lied to her, which led to their break-up. Locke lacked the social skills to realize that Helen was the best thing he would ever find in his life. When his father broke his heart, and then his spine, Locke used to call a phone worker "Helen" as a coping mechanism to his loneliness. When Locke was ready to take his great adventure, the walkabout, he did not have a friend to share that experience. And when the operator denied him his outback adventure, it was clear that Locke's dreams died as a lonely, middle aged man. This was bitterly confirmed when no one showed up at Locke's funeral. It was also ironic that in the sideways universe, he was happily together with Helen - - - but at the final reunion, Helen was not part of it (causing one to surmise that the sideways world was a fantasy-dream state).

Hurley had a more normal friendship path. He grew up and he was very close to his father. But he was extremely hurt when his father abandoned his family; he started to eat to compensate for his loss. Even so, Hurley was still able to make acquaintances and friends because of his likeable and non-threatening personality. We know that he had at least 22 friends because he was on the deck that collapsed which led to his guilt and mental institutional treatment. But even after the accident, he still had friends. His best friend was Johnny, who he would hang out with outside of work. Hurley was also friendly with a record store clerk, Starla. In fact, Hurley got the courage to ask her out on a date. But his relationship quickly soured when Johnny got upset that Hurley failed to share his lottery win secret with him. As a result, Johnny left him and started dating Starla. Hurley was convinced that the lottery win had cursed him. The numbers he played were from one of his mental institution buddies, Lenny. But Hurley's "best" friend was his imaginary friend, Dave. Dave made many appearances during the series, including one on the island which he almost got Hurley to jump off a cliff to end the illusion that he was living. Hurley was stopped by Lilly, the girlfriend he met on the island (but in a contradiction, she was seen as a mental patient in Hurley's same day room at Santa Rosa). Hurley never recognized her as a former patient which has always been a plot point problem.  As with many people, as Hurley grew older, he had less friends because he feared that bad things would happen to people around him. Like Locke, Hurley went alone on his quest to find the meaning of the numbers. He had no one he could trust with his secrets or feelings even though he got along well around other people.

Ben had a tragic childhood. His mother died at his birth, and his alcoholic father blamed him for it. His father apparently moved from odd job to odd job until he landed a position on the island. Ben came to the island as a polite 8 year old child. In the Dharma school, he met one friend, Annie, who gave him a present she made (two dolls of their likeness). Ben seemed to be a social introvert: quiet and reposed. It seemed he did not seek out friendships, but to hide in the shadows (to keep away from the wrath of his father). It seems as a boy he made a connection with Richard Alpert, one of the Others, who marveled that he could see his dead mother on the island. This gave Ben one thing to look forward to: leaving his father to become a member of the Others.  He probably thought that he could make more lasting friends in the Others camp than staying with in the rigid confines of the Dharma collective. It also appears that Annie left the island during the Incident, when women and children were evacuated by Dr. Chang. At that point, Ben lost his only friend. Ben thought he did not need friends to become powerful and respected by other people. He did not want to be a low level janitor spit upon by those in leadership roles. He wanted to command the respect of people around him. When he joined the Others, he found the same constraints as in the Dharma world. He loathed Charles Widmore because of his indifference to defenseless children. Ben's first act of defiance was saving Alex, whom he then raised as his own daughter.

So when Flight 815 crashed on the island, most of the main characters on LOST were at the crossroad of their life, staring down the path of loneliness and depressive regrets.  Even Bernard and Rose were struggling to beat her terminal cancer - -  for Bernard, losing Rose would be losing his own life. Jin and Sun's relationship had soured to the point that Sun was willing to flee her spouse and her rich family. Michael was a man without stateside friends when he picked up his son, Walt, in Australia after his mother had passed on. Walt also appeared to be a sullen, quiet and friendless child (in some ways mirrors Ben's story line). It was only after Walt left the island and lived with his grandmother, did Walt is seen in the company of school friends living a normal life (so much so that Locke decided against trying to bring him back to the island).

For the vast majority of main characters, the island was shocking life event that allowed adult strangers, through mutual adversity, to make new friends - - - the most friends each character ever had in their lifetime. And as friends, they laughed, cried, fought, argued, worked together, solved problems and had their intimate moments. In one respect, the island and the survivors were what most of the characters had been secretly longing for in their past lives: a sense of belonging, a sense of family structure, a support system, mutual caring, mutual security, a sense of community and purpose.

DREAM POLICE

Throughout history, literature came in standard format elements such as metaphor, symbolism, satire, exaggeration and codes. At times, the authors used those devices to criticize their leaders so as not to lose their heads. Writers use these methods to allow a reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. One of the most successful books that have been used over and over again as examples are the parables in the Bible.

As with the vagueness of LOST's premise and main plot line, many different themes and theories have arisen to explain the totality of the series. Was it purgatory? Was it a parallel universe? Was it time travel? Was it the avatar representation of players in a video game? Was it all a dream?

The latter has been a highly investigated topic. Many theorists have focused in on Jack's character as the source of the dream theory. It was Jack's eye opening to start the show's mythology that got people to thinking it was a link to the mind's eye, or subconscious state. It seemed to hold water when Jack's last island shot was him closing his eyes in the bamboo jungle after defeating MIB.

However, after recently hearing Cheap Trick's "Dream Police," there may be another suspect.

The dream police
They live inside of my head
The dream police
They come to me in my bed
The dream police
They're coming to arrest me
Oh no

You know that talk is cheap
And rumors ain't nice
And when I fall asleep
I don't think I'll survive

The night the night

'Cause they're waiting for me
Looking for me
Every single night
(They're) driving me insane
Those men inside my brain

What if the duality state of psychic responses was not in Jack's head but in Kate's?

It may make more sense because Kate's story line features all of the main character story elements. The show was supposedly all about character development more than plot.

The lyrics of the song pen a simple premise for Kate's dream state.

What was the major focus of Kate? To run away. To not accept responsibility. Not to grow up to make adult decisions toward accountability. And where do many people run to in troubled times? Into their own heads. The factually incorrect assumption through the series was that a U.S. Marshall was chasing down Kate for an Iowa state murder. The U.S. has no jurisdiction over murder, a state offense. And when she was "tried" for that murder, it was in California, another state without any jurisdiction. Those errors were so big and stupid it cast the whole series writing in doubt. 

The only real explanation for those egregious errors is that they were not real. 

If we accept the premise that Kate's story is fantasy, then a workable theory can be made from it.

When know the basic elements of her character: she was a rural child living with her working mother and lazy stepfather. She wanted attention so she caused trouble. She learned early how to manipulate young boys. She longed to get away from the chains of her family and to have adventures. But her family had no resources to send her away, and Kate seemed to have no attributes to better herself to go to school or college to make her own path.

LOST could be considered Kate's dream flight away from her boring life. Besides, Kate is the only person in the O6 story arc to have a "happy" outcome, i.e. getting her murder charges dismissed with a wrist slap. All the other O6 characters had brutal disappointments, including Jack turning into a drug/alcoholic, Sayid seeing the love of his life killed in an accident, and Locke being murdered by Ben.

And the other characters are elements of her personality, as depicted in Disney's recent movie Inside Out.

Shannon represents a vanity, a pretty but lazy girl who wants to be showered with gifts and attention. Locke represents her adventurous side. Sawyer represents her devious wants and desires. Hurley represents her shy but crazy side. Charlie represents her hidden creative talents. Ben represents her repressed anger against her parents. Jack represents conformity, the responsible person she is trying to avoid. Sayid represents the exotic problem solver. Claire represents the little girl trapped inside her head. The smoke monster was her deepest fears; reality. Mars, the marshal, represented her parents and the societal pressure to conform, behave and be accountable for your actions.

Throughout LOST, Kate was seemingly in the middle of every major event. She went on all the missions. Out of nowhere, she was an "expert" tracker. When she needed to be an expert marksman, she was. She got in and out of danger with barely a scratch. She always got what she wanted: escape and freedom. All the main story threads had Kate as a major factor: the plane crash, the O6 story arc, and the sideways world. In fact, Kate's story is exactly the same in both the island world and the sideways existence while the other characters had major differences. That is because Kate's mind was in control of both story worlds, bouncing back and forth like a pleasant dream to a nightmare. 

But as Kate got deeper and deeper into her fantasy dreams, the more dark they became. Add in "the Others," people who don't know her but want to control her. Jacob and MIB, tyrants who are trying to hurt her, kidnap her and enslave her mind - - - take away her freedom. 

Her Dream Police, her imagination,  were authority figures who were making demands on her. All the characters did indeed live inside her head. And when she was asleep, they tried to "arrest" her - - - take away the fantasy of adventurous freedom by putting her (and her character elements) in danger. There were times she felt she would not survive: as the plane was crashing, as she was chased into the mangrove roots by the smoke monster, when Ben held her captive, when MIB attacked the temple, when Claire lashed out at her, etc. 

So we may never really know who Kate really was. She could have been a transference of Libby, the mental patient in Hurley's group day room. As the song said, the dream police were driving her insane.

MIRROR MIRROR

One of the props and themes of LOST was the mirror. Characters would look into a mirror to contemplate a decision or change. The main characters personal issues seem to mirror each other.

But what is a mirror? 

A mirror is a reflective surface, now typically of glass coated with a metal amalgam, that reflects a clear image. It also means something regarded as accurately representing something else: the stage is supposed to be the mirror of life. In Computing, it is a site on a network that stores some or all of the contents from another site.As a verb, mirror means to show a reflection something such the clear water mirrored the sky.
It also means to correspond to, such as gradations of educational attainment that mirror differences in social background.

The origin of the word "mirror" is Middle English: from Old French mirour, based on Latin mirare ‘look at.’ Early senses also included ‘a crystal used in magic’ and ‘a person deserving imitation.’

And the early sense may be the basis for the plots of LOST.  Ben told Locke that the island was "a magic box," and if wished hard enough, he would get his wish granted. In Locke's case, his wish was to confront his devious father, Cooper, for one last time. In that situation, Cooper said that he was driving along then he was run off the road in an accident - - - and suddenly wound up as a prisoner on the island. Cooper clearly believed he had died and gone to hell.

Sideways Jack once looked into a mirror and saw unfamiliar scars, scars from his childhood or injuries from the island plane crash. That could have meant that Jack was looking at his future self, or that Jack was looking through a portal to another universe. 

The main characters in the sideways world would frequently confronted themselves in mirrors or reflective surfaces. According to Jack Bender, executor producer and director of LOST, these scenes showed the characters figuratively and literally "confronting their images and the reflections of themselves." The visual metaphor expressed the flash sideways' theme of introspection, and also represented how the flash sideways showed "what you wish for or what you're scared of."

That may be a too simple, too vague explanation of this device.

And it does not explain why the series added a second dimension of the sideways world into the main story line.

The various fan theories on mirrors from lostpedia are:

Deja Vu

• The mirror moments correspond to characters' brief *remembrance* of their lives on the island, before some major shift causes the alternate timeline to take over their lives and cause fairly complete amnesia. The reflective gaze is especially apt to triggers these memories, though it need not be the only way a character experiences deja vu.
  • This seems to be supported by Jack's behavior. He notices an inexplicable bruise on his neck at LAX airport and later suffers similar confusion over his appendectomy (albeit via direct body inspection, not mirror use).

Parallel "Bleed Through"

• The moments when alt-timeline characters observe themselves in mirrors represent the effect of a bleed-through with the simultaneously occurring main time line.

Mirror as Window into Different Timeline

• Gazing through a mirror, either on the Island Lighthouse  or within the alt-timeline, provides a means of seeing into the other timeline.  Jacob uses the mirror to gaze into many different possible outcomes, past, future, and within the flash-sideways. Characters in the flash-sideways gazing or reacting emotionally to a mirror are subliminal accessing a different chronology/reality.

 But coupled with the other evidence that the frozen donkey wheel was a time-space portal, the link between the mirror (magic) and the two different worlds (island, sideways-after life) leads to different universes theory.

Many scientists believe that there are multiple parallel universes that exist simultaneous in the same space. Think of it like your car radio - - - each separate station is a different universe but in the same space of your vehicle. Just like when a storm or electric power lines cause radio interference, two stations may blur today on the sound speakers. This overlap may be what was happening at certain points in the LOST story lines. Mainland Jack was seeing images of Island Jack; Sideways Jack was seeing images of Island Jack. But each Jack was a different "person" in a different "universe." That would explain the major differences in Jack's personal life: in the Mainland, he had been married without a child to Sarah; but in the Sideways world he had been married to Juliet and he had a son. "Jack" never reconciled the differences in his personal life between the Mainland and the Sideways realities. Maybe, he did not need to. Perhaps his "death" in the portal island world collapsed his various separate lives into one universe - - - the sideways one. 

That would explain why Juliet suddenly fell for a complete stranger, Sawyer, with only a glancing touch. Their island universe experience suddenly rushed into their sideways world and overwhelmed their sideways past experiences.

Three different universes. Three different Jacks, Juliets, Sawyers, etc. Their lives seem to collapse into one time line like the matter at the event horizon of a black hole.

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.

LOST MEMORIES

One aspect of LOST was the disconnect between the island time period and the memories lost in the sideways purgatory world.

This was never explained to the viewers.

Now, the federal government is probing a memory restoration program which sort of fits science into the breach of LOST's lost science fiction explanation of memory loss.

Memory loss can be from trauma, old age, chemical imbalances and genetics.

The U.S. government's new Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program has been created for an implantable neural-interface designed to restore lost memories in those suffering traumatic brain injuries.

As stated by DARPA in its recent press release, traumatic brain injuries (TBI) affect roughly 1.7 million civilians each year and an astounding 270,000 military servicemembers since 2000. Further, TBI has shown to impair one's ability to recall memories created before suffering the injury while also limiting the capability to form new ones after. With the RAM program, DARPA intends to expedite the process of developing tech designed to bridge the gaps created in injured brains. In other words, TBI sufferers may not have to worry about lost memories if DARPA has its way.

The RAM program aims to accomplish this memory-saving goal by performing two steps. First, DARPA hopes to create a multi-scale computational model that describes how neurons code memories. Assuming it can gather the necessary data, DARPA's next step is to create a neural-interface armed with the ability to bridge memory flow gaps created in the brain after a traumatic injury. The implant would essentially stimulate the desired target in the brain to help it restore its ability to create new memories.

DARPA says it plans on working with a number of human volunteers for its clinical trials and also intends to run studies of the tech with animals. For the volunteers, it's targeting individuals with traumatic brain injuries who have trouble encoding or recalling memories, as well as those with other neurological conditions scheduled to undergo neurosurgery. Moreover, DARPA already has the insight of a relative Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications panel for supplemental information regarding human and animal trials of this nature.

"As the technology of these fully implantable devices improves, and as we learn more about how to stimulate the brain ever more precisely to achieve the most therapeutic effects, I believe we are going to gain a critical capacity to help our wounded warriors and others who today suffer from intractable neurological problems" DARPA's biological technologies program manager told Popular Science magazine. 

No official timetable was given regarding the release of the RAM program's test results, though DARPA did say it had already begun administering trials since September. If all goes according to plan, the agency intends to expand the context of its research to those outside of the military who also experience brain trauma.

It is uncertain how a neuro-implant can "restore" lost memories if the memory center of the brain is damaged. However, in most defense projects there is something called redundancy. It is the concept that you put in a back-up into the main program or function in case of emergency. Humans also have redundant properties such as two lungs and two kidneys, in case one is compromised. But since memories are so individual and coded in brains by chemical-protein-neuron receptors, it is not like a computer chip can "reload" lost memories into an individual (like the concept in Ghost in the Shell series). 

But LOST's sideways reveal of past memories seems to indicate, at least on the surface, that the main characters' memories were either a) blocked or b) damaged when they eventually died on Earth. They could not move on until they were "awakened" by some strong emotional tie or bond. 

ANIMAL INSTINCTS

The Bear Cage passion play was the most illicit carnal scene in LOST.

After Kate was kidnapped by the Others, she was told to wash up, put on a summer dress, and meet Ben on the beach for wine and a light meal. It was at this meeting that Ben looked to charm, seduce and use Kate.

We think that Ben's first purpose was to find a new ally in Kate. He knew her background. In some ways, they were compatible: they both had father issues, broken homes, issues with authority, the need to control, highly manipulative and willing to play dirty. Many believe that this beach meeting was an awkward attempt by nerdy Ben to make a pass at Kate. In order for Ben to rule his kingdom, he needed a queen. His last attempt, his try with Juliet, ended in failure. A failure so bitter that Ben sent Juliet's lover, Goodwin, on a dangerous spy mission which would eventually lead to his death. Ben showed Juliet Goodwin's grave and cursed "you are mine." However, the only thing that came from that was an uneasy truce.

With Kate, he could literally find a new partner-in-crime. Ben possessed the one thing that Kate wanted: freedom and the lack of accountability for her actions. Ben could manipulate events in such a fashion where those dreams could come true (and perhaps he did during the O6 arc where Kate basically got no punishment for any of her crimes).

We don't know the full extent of the beach meeting, the proposed deals or what the final response was between the two parties. It seemed that Ben was rejected, and Kate thrown in an uncomfortable choice. She had feelings for Jack (who knew and kept her secrets) but was attracted to the bad boy, Sawyer. When Ben found out about her magnetic connection with Sawyer, he pounced - - - basically pitting Jack and Sawyer in a deadly love triangle.

Ben needed Jack's surgical skills to operate on his tumor. He knew that Jack would not cooperate with him. He tried to lure Jack into cooperation by having Juliet get a professional friendship started between them, then push it towards a pseudo relationship. Ben knew from the beginning that Juliet would play along with the game while at the same time try to double cross Ben. Ben wanted Juliet and Jack to bond so he can control them as a couple. If Jack fell for Juliet, Ben had the leverage to make Jack do his bidding.

Ben made Kate make a choice of who would live and die between her potential lovers. Would she choose Jack, who represented her future, or Sawyer, who represented her past?

Looks and actions can be deceiving; when Kate returned to the Bear Cages after rebuffing Ben's advances, she looked at the forlorn Sawyer in a new light. She must have realized that Ben knew Jack was more valuable to the Others than an independent troublemaker in Sawyer. Perhaps her true feelings swelled up inside her. Maybe it was a small spark of human kindness. But Kate did something she would not have done in the past without some reward - - - climbed into Sawyer's cage and made love to him.

It was a passionate, wanton display of lust that was captured by the security monitors for Jack to see.

This also fit into Ben's grand scheme - - - for if Jack had any romantic feelings for Kate, they were shattered by her shagging his obstructionist rival.

But was Kate's fling with Sawyer true love or pity sex for a condemned soul?

Afterward, Kate and Sawyer were put on a work gang building the runway. Jack began to get closer with Juliet in a way to plot against Ben. So in one respect, Ben's plan was coming together. He had separated the castaways into two groups so they would not work together. He put Juliet and Jack into one joint venture against him; something that he knew about and could out flank.

But Kate's relationship with Sawyer never went any deeper to full, complete romantic love.

In the cages on Hydra Island, Pickett asked Kate if she loves Sawyer and she responds that she does.  After the camp split, Kate went back to the Barracks for a little while, and she and Sawyer spent the night together. As Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Sawyer, and Kate leave the island on the chopper, Sawyer whispered something in Kate's ear, to her confusion. He kisses her and jumps off the chopper and into the ocean.

Prior to the Oceanic 6's return to the island, Sawyer tells Horace that he had a "thing for this girl once", but after three years, can barely remember her face. However, upon seeing Kate, he is awash with nostalgia, but it is short-lived as he reminds a worried Juliet that "nothing's changed", and that he's with her [Juliet]. After a young Ben gets shot by Sayid, Kate and Sawyer attempt to save his life by bringing Ben to the Others.

After Juliet's death, Sawyer leaves the main group, choosing to go at it alone. Kate, worried for his well-being, follows him back to the Barracks. She apologizes for Juliet's death, and starts to blame herself for the death by returning to the island.

Kate and Sawyer appear to be star-crossed lovers by their own choice. When Sawyer winds up back on shore after the helicopter escape, he drinks with Juliet on the beach. When the world goes strange (flash back in time), Sawyer becomes closer to Juliet than he ever did with Kate. So was Sawyer merely using Kate as a companion, or did he ever have true feelings for her. We could assume he did because he sacrificed himself to save her (in the helicopter).

So why did they not complete their romantic bond when both of them left the island in Frank's Ajira plane? Sawyer had lost his Juliet. Kate had lost her Jack. Both had lost their "spouses" after living with them for some time. Kate's relationship with O6 Jack fell a part before they returned to the island. Sawyer's love for Juliet was cruelly taken away from him - - - and he blamed Jack.

We don't believe Sawyer and Kate got together in the post-island mainland since they did not wind up with each other in the Sideways afterlife. So what was the Bear cage sex supposed to represent? Animal instincts? Fear released as passion? A way to make an terrible situation bearable?

One would have thought that the shared island experience, the good and the bad, would have made Sawyer and Kate a close couple in the mainland. They could have lived together happily ever after since their pre-815 personal baggage had been resolved on the island, for good and ill.

When rules of law and order breaks down, humans tend to fall back to their primitive survival modes. They tend to get selfish, self-centered and looking for instant gratification since the rules do not apply anymore. The island was a test ground for the animal tendencies of man when society's rules are suspended and there is little to no responsibility for one's actions. Kate and Sawyer thrived on that aspect of the island. So why could they have not found happiness together post-island?

One explanation would be that Kate never cared for Sawyer. That her "deal" with Ben was to become Sawyer's lover to control him. Kate would be the "double agent" that Ben needed in order to get inside the 815 camp and isolate its power-leaders. Kate stayed with Sawyer for a short time in order to get something she wanted - - - freedom and escape from the island. But Ben would not grant (or could not it seems due to Jacob's candidate power) Kate her freedom while the 815ers posed a threat to his dictatorship. So if you believe Kate was just acting with Sawyer in order to con him into submission, well played Kate. But in the heat of conflict, danger and near death experience - - - we think that Kate really did have true feelings for Sawyer, and his shelter puppy dog looks, to give Kate's heart a jolt of compassion and passion.

For unwritten in her back story is one of abuse. If it was sexual in nature, it could show why Kate's attitude towards sex was more for the manipulation of men than finding romance and stability in her life. She fled Florida when she felt her husband would find out about her past. She fled the island instead of going after Sawyer after he jumped from the helicopter. She got rid of Jack after she got a wrist slap from the court system in the O6 story arc. She never saw men as being a necessary part of her being. She never connected a physical relationship with love, but with power or self-preservation. So Kate's animal instinct for survival difficult situations encompassed much of her relationships with the men in her life. So much so that it clouded her feelings and ability to find and nurture true love.

Kate's passion for Sawyer was real, but it was lost. It may have been the first time that she took charge of her sexual desires and threw herself on a man she thought would be soon dead. She may have thought Sawyer was the one chance for survival and escape. But Kate never saw far enough ahead in a traditional viewpoint of marriage, home and family to have the bond that true soul mates find in their relationships.

Likewise, Sawyer had no basis for truly caring about any woman. His entire pattern was to love them and leave them. He feared stability because that meant he would lose his freedom. It would cramp his style. He could no longer run wild. He would be trapped in his old man's life - - - a dreadful, suicidal life. So Sawyer consciously kept all the women in his life at bay. He would use them, then throw them away. He needed to be constantly in motion, like a shark in the ocean. It was only when he was trapped with Juliet that he found some comfort in a "normal" relationship in a "normal" home life. At that point, Sawyer believed that he would never return to his past. The 1970s Dharma was going to be his life, forever. And Juliet was the best part of it.

How three years with Juliet changed Sawyer to the extent that he was a new man is not out of the question. Animal instincts can be tamed by the right woman and under the right circumstances. In Kate's situation, she also had a three year window of normalcy with Jack and Aaron - - - the suburban housewife, that she would learn to abhor. So it is possible that deep down, in the same comfortable situations of a classic American home life, Sawyer and Kate would not have been compatible.

So the Bear Cage may have been just what it seemed: instinctive animal passion brought upon by the stressful circumstances of captivity, danger and possibility of impending death.

FORGIVENESS

To err is human, to forgive divine - - - Alexander Pope

 

The main characters often said "I'm sorry" to each other, usually after misreading another's intentions.

 

But was the show about forgiveness?

 

Forgiveness is a pardon, absolution, exoneration, remission, dispensation, indulgence, clemency, mercy; reprieve, or amnesty.

The one person who was given the greatest pardon or reprieve was Ben, when he was spared his own death after killing Jacob. Ben had a megalomaniac history of horrible deeds, finishing with killing his own demigod, Jacob. But he was forgiven. And apparently it changed him (at least in the sideways world as a geeky school teacher who wants to make up for his island past by helping Alex and Danielle in their memory erased after life.)

The one person who had the most personal demons was Kate. Her criminal behavior rooted in a delusion of helping to free her mother from an abusive relationship did not result in punishment but clemency. She did not go to jail for murder. She did not go to jail for bank robbery or thefts. She got an unbelievable gift of freedom for a person whose entire life on the run was freedom from responsibility.

The one person who needed the most dispensation was Jack. His life turned into a downward spiral after his father's death because he could not cope with the fact he could not be his equal in his father's own eyes. (It was only after death when that reconciliation happened). Jack had built a quality life for himself: a miracle medical practice, professional respect, a loving first wife - - - that all crumbed through his mental paranoia and drug addictions. But the viewers (and island characters, especially Kate) would forgive his transgressions because deep down, Jack was an honest and good soul.

The one person who lucked out and did not stand for any of his crimes was Sawyer. He got amnesty by falling to earth via the plane crash. And his time on the island fulfilled his one vengeful desire to kill the man who indirectly killed his parents, Cooper. But Sawyer did not go to hell for his bad deeds. Instead, his sideways after life had him in a responsible position as a police detective.

The one character who was granted an indulgence was Hurley. He was self-conscious about his appearance, his intelligence, his personality that his life was going to captured in a career grease monkey at fast food franchises. He had no drive after his father left his family. He blamed himself for other people's misfortunes. He became so self-conscious that he had admitted mental problems, including imaginary friends. When his life derailed with the plane crash, it was a break from his mainland pressures. He could find the things that were missing in his life: real friends and a woman who would truly care for him.

ACTIONS

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. — Dale Carnegie

 There are two general types of people: leaders and followers.

Leaders are those who take charge of a situation or group. They want to be in control. They have analytical skills to motivate people around them towards a common goal.

Followers are those who don't want to be in charge. They do not want the responsibility to oversee or control the collective work group. They would rather be told what to do rather than be proactive and seize the moment.

Leaders: Jack, Ben, Widmore, Eloise, Keamy, Sawyer (only by default), Horace.

Followers: Hurley, Charlie, Claire, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Boone, Charlotte, Daniel, Dogen, the Others, Dharma workers.

Then there are few characters who were independent and did not want to lead or follow: Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Michael, Shannon.

All these characters had continuous fears and doubts about themselves:

Hurley: being liked, respected, useful.
Charlie: being alone, addicted, useful.
Claire: being a mother.
Kate: having a commitment, being responsible or accountable to anyone.
Sayid: being evil, inability to change, to find happiness.
Sun: being dependent, weak, controlled.
Jin: being poor, ashamed of his family past, respected. 
Boone: being acknowledged, respected, trusted, useful.
Charlotte: finding a purpose, a talent
Daniel: being acknowledged, respected, and worthy of affection.
Dogen: being punished, martyred.
The Others: belonging to something
Dharma workers: belonging to something.

Their LOST experiences did involve those characters coming face to face with their fears and doubts. Most fell back to the comfort of their habitual inaction. Their fate was held by the people around them. They could not trust themselves to change to become fully confident and courageous in their own abilities. Hurley wept in fear when Jack passed on the guardian role to him. Claire never reconciled her fear of motherhood when she left the island as a zombie shell of herself.

The characters who were followers were the most "lost" in the LOST bunch. They would defer decisions to other people around them who had stronger opinions, even though they knew that it was the wrong course of action. Kate was especially keen on doing this mental gymnastics as she attempted to follow many opposing leaders at the same time (Jack and Sawyer dynamic.) As a result, she never grew as a person. It solidified her personality of being a runner, someone who avoided responsibility or accountability (the hallmarks of leadership).

But in the end, curiously, both leaders and followers who took two different paths in their island adventures and decisions, wound up at the same place.

MISTAKES

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. — George Bernard Shaw

 It is hard to determine who made the most mistakes on LOST. Every character made their mistakes, some of which had lethal consequences. Then there was point where the background characters who had nothing to do decided to get involved in the action (i.e. the Doc Artz dynamite proposition.)

There was a core set of characters whose lives were basically spent doing nothing productive.

Locke dabbled from job to job, but he really wasn't good at anything. He would have moped through life but for the 815 plane crash.

Kate would not have accomplished anything in her life because it was her nature to be constantly on the run from authority.

Sawyer would have accomplished nothing legal as he was set in his criminal persona to allow him to change.

Hurley, with or without his lottery winnings, would have become a house hermit and he would have not personally accomplished anything.

Charlie led the rock star "one hit wonder" lifestyle, but that sole accomplishment (a footnote in musical history, a trivial trivia questions) meant that he would have accomplished nothing significant as a solo artist.

Claire made a big mistake getting involved with a man who ran off once he knew his was a father, leaving her to be an unwed mother with little apparent work skills to support a child on her own.

Then there was those who made mistakes in order to gain accomplishments in their lives.

Jin made the mistake of marrying Sun because that bond put him into the sleazy debt of his father-in-law in the quasi-criminal world of the family business.

Likewise, Sun made a mistake in marrying Jin as a means of rebelling against her dominant father by bringing home a poor door man. She compounded her mistake by having an affair which would have brought shame on the family name.

I think Jack also made a big mistake in trying to follow in his father's footsteps. I don't know if Jack was happy being a surgeon. He may have been better off playing his music as a free spirit than going to medical school. There was never going to be a recognition by his father of Jack's career accomplishments because Christian had already surpassed his son at every level. What lies in the shadow of a dominant father figure? A cowering child.

All of the above characters had personal regrets prior to boarding Flight 815. What had they completed in their lives? They had achieved some levels of success to none at all. 

Only a few of the characters actually accomplished their goals when surviving the plane crash: leaving the island. Only Kate, Claire, and Sawyer actually made it into the Ajira plane to leave the island. Locke left the island, but in his mission to get back to the island he made the mistake of trusting Ben, which led to his demise. (On the TV series, we only see Hurley next in the sideways world - - - which we now know is when he had already died. We don't know for sure if Hurley ever left the island.) The rest made new mistakes which cost them their chance of rescue.

Jack made the fatal mistake of becoming the island guardian. Sayid made the mistake of coming back to life then trying to be a martyr on the submarine (which cost the lives of Jin and Sun). Charlie made a similar mistake in drowning in the underwater station.

Maybe there was a Darwinian undercurrent through the series. The best and brightest may have a chance of survival, but in reality it is still random chance. If one makes mistakes, it may increase the odds of a bad result.

LOST WORLDS

“ Every man carries with him the world in which he must live. ”
— F. Marion Crawford 


A world is a place defined as a person's life and activities outside one's self.

Jack's world that he created was that of being a driven medical doctor in order to feed the need for his father's approval.

Kate's world that she created was that of a rebel in order to lash out at her parents for their secrets.

Locke's world that he created was one of forced acceptance equality and balance with others that he lacked in growing up without parents or siblings.

Sawyer's world that he created was one of darkness and revenge in order to fill the void when his parents were killed.

Hurley's world that he created was one of fantasy in order to avoid dealing with the issues of his father's abandonment and consequential depression and self-esteem issues.

Sayid's world that he created was that of a brilliant soldier to cope with the issues of growing up as the child who would do the dirty work for his father and siblings.

Charlie's world that he created was the dreams of a rock star in order to overcome the isolation from his family who moved on to create their own new families.

Rose's world that she created was one of faith and acceptance in order to deal with her terminal cancer.

Bernard's world that he created was that of curing Rose in order to be with her in order to deal with her terminal cancer which goes back to curing his bachelor loneliness.

Sun's world that she created was one of a rebellious child in order to seek independence from the customs and burdens placed upon her by her father.

Jin's world that he created was one of great expectations and wealth by leaving his village to go to the big city to find fame and fortune in order to end his cycle of poverty and shame.

Desmond's world that he created was that of the tortured soul who gets rewarded with his dream life with his lover in order to offset his fears of commitment and failure as a man.

If you look at all the character's worlds, they all intersect in the Island events. Their desires intertwine in the story lines, each helping the other toward their fantasy or dream goal that created their own separate worlds. It is the collection of the worlds that each character created on their own that fuses the premise of the island as the engine for their journeys to find resolution of the thing(s) they were trying to deal with from their childhoods. The world of LOST was made up the worlds of the characters colliding with other. In the primal mode of survival, no one notices that each has deep scars from their childhoods that their dream worlds were to heal. But no one can heal themselves. They need new friends, new families, new relationships and new ideas in order sort one's problems out to find a lasting resolution.

NURSING A CONCEPT

It is hard to imagine, but the story lines of LOST contained more than 35 "nurses."  In battlefield medical tents, nurses were called "angels of mercy." They have the difficult job of treating people in difficult to life threatening situations.

There are some interesting patterns with some of them.

Locke's nurse at St. Thomas Hospital where he donated a kidney to Anthony Cooper later showed up as his nurse at St. Sebastian Hospital with Jack. It is odd that a nurse would change hospitals. It would seem that this nurse was "assigned" to follow Locke, to watch over him.

A nurse worked at the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute in which Hurley and Libby were institutionalized as patients. When Hurley came back (after being released) to visit Leonard, the nurse would not allow Hurley to see him, as he didn't know Leonard's last name. Eventually Hurley was let in by Dr. Curtis.  This nurse must have been hired after Hurley left because she did not know him. The odd part is that Hurley was good with names, so he would have remembered Leonard's last name.

But the more mysterious nurse was Susie Lazenby, a nurse from a prior episode, "Dave."  She was the nurse who gave medications in the day room to both Hurley and Libby. Was there something important to keep both Hurley and Libby "drugged" to the point where they would not remember each other?

Ayesha was a nurse at the local Tunisian infirmary to which a severely injured Locke was brought to after he turned the FDW.  She was on duty when three men entered carrying Locke. A doctor shouted out loud for her twice while he was treating Locke, but she was unresponsive until another nurse pointed out to her that the doctor was in hurry. When she finally responded to the doctor, Matthew Abaddon  was watching from behind a curtain where she was standing. Abbadon was Locke's orderly after he was paralyzed by Cooper's betrayal. Ayesha was the last person Locke seemed to recognize before losing consciousness.

Debra was a DHARMA nurse who assisted Juliet while operating and caring for a young Ben who was shot by Sayid during the time flash period. She worked with Juliet and later informed Juliet that Kate was there to donate blood for Ben because she was a universal donor.

In the End, Nurse Jean assisted Jack with patient Locke at St. Sebastian Hospital when Locke awakened. Jean's name was said on screen by Jack making her the final named character ever to be introduced on LOST.

In the theme of Life and Death, nurses as angels can be powerful symbols. Or they can be sinister agents for powerful forces. For example, in Locke's story his life "ends" when he is thrown 8 stories from a window. As part of his miraculous rehab, an orderly called Abbadon (which is a reference to the devil) imparts wisdom and hope to Locke to continue with his rehab. Abbadon, who is working for Widmore, returns to help Locke gather up the O6 survivors to return to the island. But not after being present when Locke is treated after his time flash. Abbadon and the nurses around him clearly were pushing, guiding and advising Locke on important decisions that Locke had to make in order to survive.

I also think nurse Susie Lazenby was carrying on exterior motives by being the one medicating both Hurley and Libby. She could have been an operative to keep Hurley or Libby from remembering their past or their future (see prior post about the sideways world being first in actual time).  Who would suspect a nurse who has an oath to help patients, actually dispensing drugs to keep souls in the state of darkness, despair, illusion or depression? It is the perfect cover to control, manipulate and brain wash patients.

Perhaps young Ben learned these manipulation techniques when he was shot by Sayid. Kate took on the role of being an angel of mercy by donating blood to save Ben's life. Juliet, knowing what Ben would become in the future, decided that her own personal feelings and desire to kill the monster called Ben in 2004 had no place in 1977. It was one of those ethical puzzles with no clear answer.

If one thinks the series was an dreamy after life state where the characters had to sort through various ethical, moral, immoral and judgmental decisions, the nurses weaved into the stories could be the good messengers to the dark forces trying to manipulate lost souls. And it was the various choices, changes of direction and final decisions in the maze of series events led the main characters to the sideways church reunion, all with some contact to a nurse sometime during the series.

SELF CHARACTERIZATION

You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. 
 — A.A. Milne

One of the quiet or nearly hidden theme of the show was how each main character viewed themselves.

Jack's alleged personality flaw was the lack of leadership skills (the life or death decision making process) instilled in his mind by his aloof father. But that characterization is not seen in any of Jack's background story. From the earliest moments, he stood to a school yard bully for his friend (and paid the price.) He was a emergency room trauma surgeon. He had to make quick decisions, bark out orders, and deal with life or death issues every day. He had to keep his emotions in check. The one critical aspect of his professional practice was that he always gave his patients hope because he could not accept the fact he could not fix everything.

Jack's character was supposed to die early in the series. His death was supposed to "shock" the viewers to the gravity of the island survival. Kate was going to be the focal point character for the series. It is hard to imagine now that Kate would have carried the series. Jack's personality and demographic appeal kept him on the series (the pilot was killed instead.) By Jack staying in the series, it gave the writers the opportunity to "save" injured people, or allow them to die while Jack struggled to cope with their deaths (i.e. Boone). 

Kate was never a leader. She was always a runner. She would get into trouble. Her solution was run away, not be accountable or responsible. She was the anti-leader. She was not even a good follower. She was a loner. Loners with serious baggage are quite independent. Kate probably enjoyed her rebel persona.

Sawyer was Kate's kindred soul. He also had serious baggage, including murder, in common with Kate. He was a loner who enjoyed playing with weaker individuals. He was not about gaining power but rigging situations for his own personal benefit. He did not want or need followers or friends. Sawyer learned the con man trade in order to get into the world of Anthony Cooper, the man who destroyed his family and his life. Sawyer thought of himself as a avenger, the only person who could exact closure to his own personal pain.

On the other hand, Locke aggressively sought out friendship and purpose. His parental abandonment left a big hole in his life. He wanted to be wanted; he needed to be needed. Locke turned his back on what he was good at (school, science) to try to be something he was not (a jock). As a result, no one accepted him. He tried too hard to fit in, including joining a commune. But he was so naive, he did not understand that he was constantly used as a pawn in other people's games. 

When Locke arrived on the island, he had another opportunity to change his persona. He acted like he was the great outback hunter. He could provide food, shelter and guidance to the survivors. It was hard for him to accept that the beach camp gravitated toward the doctor over his skill set. This drive to be accepted by his peers led Locke to become another pawn in the Island's game.

Then you have a character like Sayid who actually knew who he was: a dark soul soldier. He knew he was brave. He knew his was deadly. He hated himself that he could lie, torture or kill his opponents without guilt or shame. He had the experience to be stronger, smarter and more clever than anyone around him. He should have been a natural born leader, but he allowed himself to follow orders instead of commanding center stage. In some ways, he was anti-Locke, who wanted to give the Braveheart speech and lead the survivors in battle.  Sayid was more comfortable doing his solo missions because he never wanted to be responsible for the safety of another person.

Braver. Stronger. Smarter.
Which characters found themselves outside their personal comfort zones during the Island time?

Jack was braver in dealing with human conditions he could not control on the Island. The physical aspects of finding water, keeping people on point, going on missions made him physically stronger. But the added responsibility did not make him any smarter, because he continued to misjudge people and their motivations.

Kate was slightly braver when she went on missions for the sake of a group goal. But she continued to be distant with interpersonal relationships unless it gave her leverage. She was always a tom boy on the run so the island events did not make her physically stronger. She really was not that dependent on the group for survival. Her island time did give her more chances to charm the men around her. She was always street smart and could see through people like Sawyer.

Sawyer became braver when he gunned down a polar bear on the group's first mission to find rescue. He volunteered for a near suicide mission to go off on Michael's raft. It seemed that the Island kept throwing him into dangerous situations where he had to physically fight back. So he became physically stronger, but mentally weaker. He got conned by other people around him, including Ben.  But for the time travel tangent with Juliet in Dharmaville, Sawyer would have wound up as an egotistical manipulator like Ben.

Locke never fit in. He appeared braver after the crash, but the group did not accept his bravery (some feared it). He appeared stronger like a survivalist after the crash, but his emotions got the better of him. Emotions that clouded his judgment. Locke fixated on things as the answer to his own problems (and therefore, the answer to everyone else's problems). When he was wrong, it made him more bitter. And the more bitter he got, the weaker people perceived him. He was not very smart because people easily made him the fool. Locke's island tenure mirrored his miserable pre-crash life.

Sayid's time on the island was also a non-change. Sayid was always a brave soldier, always able to do the group's "dirty work." He was stronger than anyone around him. He was military smart in tactics, weapons, killing and gathering  intelligence. As such, Sayid was viewed by those in power as tool to be used to secure or maintain power. First, Sayid worked for Jack taking the dangerous missions in the jungle. Then he worked for Ben as an asssassin. Finally, he worked for MIB on the island. Once Sayid was killed and reincarnated in the temple, Zombie Sayid finally realized that he was an empty shell. He was no longer independent, but a pawn who did not think much of himself.

Clearly, all the main characters went through a lot of trials and torment on the Island. But did they really change that much? Did a light bulb go off and suddenly make them smarter? Did a dormant trait hidden deep inside them awaken to make them stronger? Did their fits of bravery more heavily rely on basic instincts over courage? It may be subjective to answer those questions. It depends upon how you viewed each character's life before and after their Island time periods. But it is interesting to note that none of the main characters came to the self realization that they truly changed as the series closed. Kate continued to run away. Sawyer was self-motivated to get off the island. Locke and Sayid died in meaningless ways. And Jack never came to grip with his emotional demons. No one came out and said that they had an epiphany; that they were a changed person.