Life, death, and meaning of Lost
Much speculation has been written about the final 2 1/2 hour episode of Lost. I'd like to mull over the first minute or two of the Pilot episode and the final minute or two of The End. The series starts with a close up of an eye opening, with the iris narrowing to block the sunlight. We see the character we will later know as Jack lying on his back in a bamboo jungle. From his perspective we see a dog (whom we will later learn is Vincent) approach Jack and walk away. The series ends with Jack lying in the same spot in the bamboo.
Jack is no longer wearing his blue suit with a tie; he is wearing a similarly dark blue T-shirt. From his perspective, we see Vincent approach and lie down next to Jack and Jack seems to take comfort in Vincent's presence. We once again get the close up view of Jack's eye and he closes it. As the final credits roll, we see the plane wreck on the beach, but no on is running around, there is no chaos, no bodies.
In between has been variously described as purgatory, or the moment as Jack dies that his mind wanders into a dream-like state... it really doesn't matter. The framework is there. The series begins and finishes with Jack's eye opening and closing as Jack lies wounded in the same bamboo forest with the same tennis shoe hanging from a branch, as Jack is confronted by a non-threatening dog. The story, all six years of it, resides between Jack's awakening in that bamboo forest, until his death in that same bamboo-surrounded, sunlight spot.
And what is that story? Jack arises, and goes to work helping people. He organizes men to lift a section of the broken plane off a trapped man and puts a tourniquet on his leg. He calms a pregnant woman who is starting contractions and recruits a man to keep her calm and safe. He relieves a young lifeguard from giving resuscitation to a woman, bringing her the breath of life. He runs to the pregnant woman and her guardian and gets them to move away from where the plane wing is falling.
By the end of the six years of stories, we learn a few things. That the details of these peoples' lives, whether in the past, the present, the future, or jumping around in time, are just details... story-telling to get us to watch the show. This is the machine within the machine, driving the Hollywood paychecks. But there is a consistency with every story: a moral, you might say. It is not black versus white, good versus evil, faith versus science (or logic), because every character on the show reveals some degree of good and bad. Some are mostly very good, others are mostly very bad, many are whole bunches of both.
But all who are in the last season's flash sideways, in Jack's meeting place, where there is no "now," have all done one thing: they help. Some ask for help, knowing they cannot change without it. Some give help. Many fall in love and say "I love you." This need for interdependence is what makes them all better. The selfish, who affected others just to satisfy their own needs, are left out, hoping to be worthy of coming into the light.
The key to the story (no matter what the story is) resides in helping and being helped and love. When each of us learns to give aid, to ask for aid when we need it, and to love and be grateful for the people with which we surround ourselves, then we survive, and we bathe in the warmth of the light of interdependence.
Jack is no longer wearing his blue suit with a tie; he is wearing a similarly dark blue T-shirt. From his perspective, we see Vincent approach and lie down next to Jack and Jack seems to take comfort in Vincent's presence. We once again get the close up view of Jack's eye and he closes it. As the final credits roll, we see the plane wreck on the beach, but no on is running around, there is no chaos, no bodies.
In between has been variously described as purgatory, or the moment as Jack dies that his mind wanders into a dream-like state... it really doesn't matter. The framework is there. The series begins and finishes with Jack's eye opening and closing as Jack lies wounded in the same bamboo forest with the same tennis shoe hanging from a branch, as Jack is confronted by a non-threatening dog. The story, all six years of it, resides between Jack's awakening in that bamboo forest, until his death in that same bamboo-surrounded, sunlight spot.
And what is that story? Jack arises, and goes to work helping people. He organizes men to lift a section of the broken plane off a trapped man and puts a tourniquet on his leg. He calms a pregnant woman who is starting contractions and recruits a man to keep her calm and safe. He relieves a young lifeguard from giving resuscitation to a woman, bringing her the breath of life. He runs to the pregnant woman and her guardian and gets them to move away from where the plane wing is falling.
By the end of the six years of stories, we learn a few things. That the details of these peoples' lives, whether in the past, the present, the future, or jumping around in time, are just details... story-telling to get us to watch the show. This is the machine within the machine, driving the Hollywood paychecks. But there is a consistency with every story: a moral, you might say. It is not black versus white, good versus evil, faith versus science (or logic), because every character on the show reveals some degree of good and bad. Some are mostly very good, others are mostly very bad, many are whole bunches of both.
But all who are in the last season's flash sideways, in Jack's meeting place, where there is no "now," have all done one thing: they help. Some ask for help, knowing they cannot change without it. Some give help. Many fall in love and say "I love you." This need for interdependence is what makes them all better. The selfish, who affected others just to satisfy their own needs, are left out, hoping to be worthy of coming into the light.
The key to the story (no matter what the story is) resides in helping and being helped and love. When each of us learns to give aid, to ask for aid when we need it, and to love and be grateful for the people with which we surround ourselves, then we survive, and we bathe in the warmth of the light of interdependence.