I'm Talking Out My Ass Here. Please Take With A Grain Of Salt.

I’ve never watched a full episode of Lost. When it started, I was in grad school and communting to Philadelphia twice a week for work. I really didn't have time to get sucked into a series like that. I believe I may have seen part of an episode from the first season at my dad’s house but fell asleep at some point during it. And I’ve seen a few clips here and there. Tonight, not really caring, I watched the last five minutes of the series just so I would have some sort of frame of pop culture reference when talking to other people. You know, like when the Sopranos cut to black, the Seinfeld cast ended up in jail and Bob Newhart ended up sleeping next to Suzanne Pleshette.

I’m not exactly sorry that I didn’t watch the series. I mean, it’s apparently a story about a plane crash and, surprise, the characters are all dead at the end. Gee, I never would have spent seven years wondering if that could possibly happen. But knowing the end now, I can’t help but wonder about the philosophical side of the story.

Fans, humor an outsider here.

I’ve heard and read all sorts of questions regarding the intricate plots and subplots of the story. I’ve read theories and jokes about polar bears, smoke monsters and many mysteries over the years. I’ve heard people not expecting to have their questions to be answered in the last season.

I gather that much of it was a big metaphor for life and what happens when you die. For example, a character is swept away by a big bird in one of the episodes. How many times in life does this happen in a less figurative sense? Someone you know who is always around and a part of your life falls off the face of the earth and you no longer speak. You never know exactly what happened to them just that something happened and they are no longer around. Perhaps that's what that represented.

Perhaps there's an alternate world where our alter egos, dreams and fantasies carry out. Of course, this world exists merely in our own minds. And perhaps our souls, living or dead, meet there from time to time. Maybe sometimes we're all dreaming the same dream. And maybe there's a third world, a sideways world, where you are remembered by others, where they question what you might have done when facing their triumphs and tribulations. Maybe they see you in a different light than you would think they would see you. And maybe they fuck up your stories.

Maybe the Smoke Monster represented cancer or disease in general. I seem to recall fans being surprised that it could kill one of the characters so quickly and easily. That's what diseases do. They attack even the strongest and toughest among us without prejudice.

Another clip that I’ve seen involved the turbulence on the plane where Charlie from Party of Five is gripping his seat for dear life. The turbulence ends and the woman next to him tells him that he can now let go. Some theorize that this is the moment where his life ends and that is why she says it’s okay to let go. The adventure that ensues is perhaps his time in purgatory of some sort. Or maybe he isn’t really dead yet and that he’s going on a big adventure before his death with a bunch of other passengers before they die as well.

Or maybe you just see some really fucked up shit before your die. Who knows?

At the end (the part that I did see), the Party of Five appears to be at a funeral home/church. He is told that the time spent on the island and the people there were the most important parts of his life. Even as an outsider, this puts it all into perspective. We all go through life together, our adventures, our triumphs, our downfalls and our fears. At the end, we won’t know the logic behind every little detail. And it’s not important that we do. What’s important is the people who were with us along the way during our journey.

Or maybe, as I've always suspected, it's just a lame TV show and I'm up way too late theorizing about something I know absolutely nothing about.

But why the fuck wasn’t the dog in the church? I guess there’s a separate heaven for animals after all. Take that, Sylvia Brown.