LOST No More…
If you didn't watch the finale, you'll want to skip this post.
Before tonight I've watched just three full episodes--all within the last past couple months while crashing at a friend's place. What I understand of this series, I know from the last 1.5 hours and more clearly from the last 5 minutes. So, disregard the following if it's totally wrong.
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE
So if I understand this story correctly, all the characters were stranded on the island for real and everything that happened on this island actually happened--this is a sci-fi adventure after all. The flashbacks, then, were assumed to be the life that each individual character had lived prior to being stranded on the island. Therefore...
ENTERING THE TWILIGHT ZONE
... the flashbacks were actually the future present past. Meaning, the "afterlife" they are living (everything that was assumed to be normal life, life before the island) is the future. As each character dies in real life (the life lived on the island) they become aware of the present in the future (that they are dead and are in the "afterlife") and are able to make sense of their past (that they had all either died on the flight, during their time on the island, or sometime after Jack died). The flashbacks weren't the scenes depicted as "normal life." Life on the island is actually the flashback. So...
HIT THE ROAD, JACK
... the key is Jack. The story centers around Jack. All the characters, the time, the point at which they come to understand that they are alive but really dead, all revolve around Jack. That's why it's so difficult to grasp the story, because all of the flashbacks and all of the things that are happening on the island are relative to Jack's time and his revelation and awareness--also because though they are alive they are really dead and though dead we think they are alive. Any questions you have about anything that is left unresolved. It doesn't matter because it's not central to the story, because the story revolved around Jack coming to realization that he is dead.
THE SPIRITUAL MEANING BEHIND LOST
Everything about LOST is essentially spiritual. You cannot understand or make sense of this story without some sort of belief in life, death, and something that happens with the two in terms of time. Notice, I said "with" and not necessarily "between." But that's what's probably the most confusing thing about this series. How do we understand time? It's the same as asking someone to define eternity.
That's the main spiritual and philosophical question that this show leaves me pondering:
How do we understand eternity?
Is eternity something we step into after we live and then die? Such a journey is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.
Or, as the show espouses, is eternity something that we are already a part of, just not aware of yet?
Contrary to what Matthew Fox just said on Jimmy Kimmel after the finale, the story really isn't open to interpretation, because it is a story and it does require a storyline. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end no matter how you rearrange the flashbacks (just so we're not confused here, the flashbacks were what happened on the island, not what we perceived to be"normal" life before the island).
A CONCISE CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF ETERNITY
On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel likened the understanding of the afterlife with Christian understandings that when we live good lives we go to heaven and when we do bad things we go to hell. If that were the case, we're all screwed.
Fortunately, there's good news.
But, that'll be another post to come. To be continued...
