Is The World Falling Apart??? Or Am I Collapsing the Universe??? Part 4: Lost and Found
Quantum leaps required. And available as necessary ...
“No one can tell you why you're here."
"We all have a choice in life, Charlie”
“It’s okay. You can let go now.”
“There is no now, here."
“I’ll see you in another life, brother.”
(Warning: You may find yourself lost in this if you aren’t familiar with Lost.)
Yes, I admit it. Wholeheartedly: I watch Lost. I love Lost. Judge me if you will: I’m a doofus, a geek, a fool! But I don’t care. (Not the equivalent of a 21st Century trekkie – you won’t find me wearing a Dharma Initiative jumpsuit - but close.) Eagerly, faithfully, from week to week, I followed the sprawling, messy, tangled, far-fetched, illogical, non-linear storylines of each of the exquisitely flawed passengers of Oceanic flight 815 and the “other” assorted friend/foe inhabitants/visitors of that achingly beautiful island as they jumped from time to time, place to place, crisis to crisis, relationship to relationship, choice to choice. Flashing back, flashing forward, flashing sideways. Running, running, running; frequently stumbling. Coming and going and coming back again. Through the jungle, across continents and cultures and religions, through time and space, from one life to another, towards an inevitable, bittersweet, beautiful end.
Yes, I impatiently anticipated each new season. The beatings, the couplings, the surprises, the violence, the intimate tender moments, the explosions, the births, the deaths, the love. I’m sad, even a little depressed, to see it end. I’ll miss what started as a story of survival and evolved into a complex character study and multi-tiered allegory. I’ll miss those gorgeous faces and hot bodies. I’ll miss being challenged and asked to think and pay attention and question and care. While watching a network television show, for God’s sake.
Sure, there’s a lot of needless fisticuffs, tearing in the jungle, falling in mud, improbable coincidences, impossible occurrences. But Lost is compelling because it doesn’t shy away from the Big Questions. It embraces and insists on them: Good versus evil. Faith versus doubt. Free will versus destiny. Right versus wrong. Order versus chaos. Temperance versus temptation. Newtonian versus quantum versus metaphysics. The light versus the shadow. Control versus impotence. Fact versus fiction. Freedom versus bondage. Theology versus science. Intelligent design versus random unfolding. The Truth versus false gods. Holding on versus letting go. (Substituting “versus” with “and” takes you to a whole new dimension ...) Karma, redemption. What might you die for; who would you kill for; what’s worth living for. How much of life is preordained; how much we determine through our choices. What it all means, what’s it’s all for. What comes next, and how we get there -
Yep, covered a lot of ground in those six seasons. The last promised to answer the niggling questions the show presented earlier, the big and not so big. Questions I’ve been posing in this very blog! It didn’t. Not all. (Or perhaps I missed them while pondering some tangential plot line, a new character, an interesting nugget. Like, where the original Others came from and why they were on the island? The parallels between Jacob/Man in Black and Cain/Abel, Jacob/Esau, Romulus/Remus, God casting Satan to hell … ? Why does the smoke monster sound like a yellow cab receipt machine? How could Juliet detonate an H-bomb and everyone, including Juliet, live? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, which, incidentally, could very well be floating off the coast of the tropical island with a polar bear on top … But I digress.)
Interestingly, the answers to my questions, and those of the many nitpicky naysayers, though sometimes valid, don’t really matter. (Oh, the haters, vocal and ubiquitous, abound; their complaints often sound like those of a bitter ex-lover talking about a failed relationship: “I’m so glad I stopped when I did, before I wasted too much time/got too attached… it was getting too complicated … too much work … I don’t like being manipulated … it was going nowhere … so disappointing; I expected so much more … “) Some people just shun challenge and commitment. Well, like a Lost character, I stuck it out, even when it confused the hell out of me, hit me with curve balls, pissed me off, and broke my heart.
And like any relationship, good or bad, there are lessons to be gleaned. The parallel stories, time jumping, coincidences, randomness, surreal elements all allow me to introduce the next theory/belief system in our discussion about how the universe unfolds, about who we are and why we’re here. So I’ll use my Lost appreciation/fixation to continue the discourse on beliefs - physics, Butterfly Effects, (super)string (as opposed to silly string) theory and other assorted teachings, the intersecting of the scientific and the spiritual. One informs the other and informs me.
Quantum theory, 101.
To fully appreciate and get Lost, one needs to “let go”, suspend disbelief, and remain open without trying too much to interpret or understand or insist or control. As Jack, our hero, eventually must. Still, I’m not sure what the authors intended:
· If what happened really happened out in the physical world
· How much of the narrative took place exclusively within Jack’s consciousness
· Where the line between Jack’s interpretation/experience of what happened matched what really happened
(Which I love. What’s “real”; what’s illusion; what’s all in our head. Does Netwonian cause-and-effect even exist, or have we moved to a more subtle and sophisticated understanding of how the physical world operates? Is there in fact a physical world? Or do we, through our consciousness, create or project the world? More on that in another blog …)
My questions abound. For starters:
Did the adventure on the island actually happen? Did the Oceanic 6 really return to the island? Or did the “survivors” of Oceanic flight 815 all die in the plane crash?
Did the hydrogen bomb explode years earlier; “ it worked” as per Juliet, destroying the conditions that would have caused the crash in the first place?
Was Jack bringing his father back to the States for burial? Or was he himself in fact the “Christian Shepherd” in the casket?
Was there actually an Oceanic flight 815?
Did Daniel (I think it was Daniel) just kill his own mother – before she gave birth to him???
Did Miles just meet himself as a baby???
Did the island actually move, disappear? Does it actually exist in the physical world as hell or the container of evil? Or does it serve more as a metaphor, the “place” we keep coming back to in order to reconcile our lives, atone for our sins, in search of our life or purpose or soul?
My take? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. “What happened, happened.” All of it. Because we live in a quantum field of infinite possibility, where anything, everything can happen, unfolding spontaneously/simultaneously, because time and space don’t actually exist.
We’re approaching the crossroad where the scientific and spiritual intersect … The show’s creators, writers, producers, etc. do a stellar job of fusing the two. Though they sometimes seem to favor an “it’s your destiny” and “meant to be” explanation for events, they seem to agree with the quantum physicists and spiritual sages
that our fundamental ground state is pure consciousness;
that the universe is a projection pure consciousness – personal, collective, and divine;
that through pure consciousness, we manifest the universe, a field of infinite possibilities;
that, in conjunction with divine (universal, God, creation) consciousness, our personal (internal) consciousness or samsara, formed from our memories, desires, past experiences, conditioning, etc., helps project/create the collective (external) consciousness of the world as it appears to us;
that nothing exists outside of consciousness;
that the universe is non-locally correlated, beyond space and time;
that everything in the universe is unfolding instantaneously, simultaneously, right now, connected to and correlated with everything else;
that we, through our intention, beliefs and conditioning, collapse “probability clouds” into being, into “reality” first internally, then collectively/externally;
that time / space continuum is merely a construct of our magnificent but limited mind in its best attempts to understand, organize and interpret what it takes in through its senses and can perceive of the universe;
that while the laws of physics seem to apply, rules can change and quantum leaps – miracles – do occur, frequently;
that Deepak Chopra can explain it better than I, and you can learn more by checking out http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Deepak-Chopra-on-How-We-Manifest-the-Universe-Video_1
Got it?
You are much more than matter (noun): you matter (verb!). Despite certain ostensible inevitabilities, your thoughts, emotions and actions, your consciousness, in an eternal interplay with others and the divine, helps bring the universe, and your experience, into existence. One drives and depends upon the others. (How cool is that?) Just like the characters in the show.
Perhaps this explains why everyone had to return to the island: Along with divine energy/consciousness (notice the constant religious and spiritual references throughout the series), we need others to co-create our existence … On a symbolic/psychological level, perhaps each Lost character not only plays out his or her individual story arc, he or she play a part in forming the composite of Jack’s personality. Each represent the light and shadow sides of different aspects of his (and our) psyche. Kind of like the voices we hear in our heads, each expressing different aspects of our self. Arguing, agreeing, debating, battling for influence. (This might also explain all the family – mommy, sibling and especially daddy – baggage so many of the characters carry.)
On a symbolic/psychological level, perhaps each Lost character not only plays out his or her individual story arc, he or she play a part in forming the composite of Jack’s personality, each representing the light and shadow sides of different aspects of his (and our) psyche. Kind of like the voices we hear in our heads. On the surface, we have Jack, our hero, the good doctor, man of science, reluctant leader, always needing to fix things. He, like Kate, the fugitive, tough but vulnerable, wants to do the right thing but frequently overreaches and wreaks havoc. In his relationship with Locke, the survivor, a man of faith, we see Jack’s need to question his own faith in science. In Boon, portrait of the surgeon as a young man, so full of hope and eager to help, Jack confronts his own limitations and must accept the “what is” and let go. Sometimes his inner Sayid surfaces; we all have the ability to convince ourselves that there is a season and a purpose even for killing. Jin and Sun, the eternal lovers who spend so much time coming together, but so little time actually together … then there’s Hurley, Claire, Charlie, Desmond, Ben, Juliet …
Though his conscious mind didn't grasp what was happening at the time, perhaps Jack was struggling with his yet unresolved “issues” and needed all aspects of his self in alignment, prepared and ready, before he could transition and "move on."
The "Others," c'est moi. The paradox of the individual as a composite; of many fusing into one. I understand this person / these people. We take the ride along with them, love them, hate them, love hating them, hate loving them. The international cast may first appear to us as stereotypes but quickly evolve into complex individuals who make mistakes and bad choices, who do the best they can at the time; fallen angels with their own independent trajectories, which ultimately inform the whole. Taken independently, each character has been damaged by a dark history, struggles with inner demons and external dangers, overcomes physical challenges and battering, faces impossible decisions. They grow, evolve, come together, switch alliances, regroup. Life’s a continuous stream of crisis and hardship, punctuated by small tender shared moments, fleeting and poignant, that make it all worthwhile. Ultimately, these people help each other to “let go”, “remember” (re-member?) and “move on”.
“Whatever happened, happened.” Indeed. Jack’s storyline unfolds because of, in conjunction with, yet independent of, the others’. In an continuous, simultaneous, spontaneous interplay between one’s own consciousness (energy in the form of thoughts, beliefs, actions), in this case Jack’s, the consciousness of others, and divine (or source, or “fate”, or universal, or God) consciousness, we not only co-create all aspects of the universe and our experience of it, we are, paradoxically, also created by it. Yes, it’s happening out there, as a result of what’s happening in here. In our hearts and minds. Heavy.
Quantum physicis, aside …
All this wrapped up in rip-roaring, layered action-adventure stories, set in stunning locations, supported by a musical score and sound effects that serve as the perfect vessel to help carry us over wave after wave of emotion. The snappy, provocative, funny (and sometimes hokey) dialogue is performed by some damn fine actors, many who also happen to be freakin’ gorgeous. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Viewers hungry for intelligent, sophisticated, challenging television (no longer an oxymoron) around the world have devoured the series, proving that audiences want and will support this type of programming. Perhaps this heralds the end of producers and writers catering primarily to the LCD with bad scripted shows and fake “reality” bullshit intended to stimulate and sell products to the feeding and fucking centers of the brain. The show has raised the bar; the audience spoken, and has shown it demands and deserves more.
So I’ve gone back to the beginning, to Season 1, and with my knowledge of where we’ve been I now better see where we’re going, the genius of the show. I notice and appreciate the seeds that had been planted along the way, the clues, and better understand the turns and twists, joys and sorrow of the amazing journey … I plan to pay more attention this time around, especially to Jack’s time in Asia; maybe I’ll come away with a better understanding …
It makes me yearn for more beauty, drama and passion in my own life. And raises for me another really Big Question: where are men like the ones on Lost that on this damned island????
PS - And wouldn't you know, the night I posted this blog, under a canopy of moon and clouds, on Pier 1 of this isle of Manhattan, at an open-air dance party, I met the most darling Spaniard, an architect and cultural attache for his country, who could pass for Matthew Fox's younger brother ...
Thanks to:
Quantum Leaps – 7 Skills for Workplace Creation by Charlotte Shelton
Deepak Chopra
Albert Einstein
Sir John Wheeler
“What The Bleep Do We Know”
© 2010 Theresa Quadrozzi - A Muse In Manhattan
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