There are many themes that exist in Lost. Destiny, fate, life, death, reincarnation, choice.......all have existed since season 1 and have been prevalent throughout every episode. I am choosing to focus on life, death, and reincarnation with this theory. This is a slightly more in depth follow up to a piece I submitted 8/11/09 entitled "end game is about human evolution and the afterlife". This is a little out there, and its just idea, please don't flame unnecessarily.
I will be dealing with some of the subject matter in Lost and how it relates to my theory about the main aspect of the show. But first, you need to know what I think may be going on.
I know you have all dissected the opening scene of "The Incident" a thousand times over like I have, but it's a good place to start. Nemesis says that humans come to the island, fight, destroy and corrupt and that it always ends the same. Jacob says that it only ends once, and anything else is just progress. What if what Jacob meant by "it only ends once", is merely that a human life only ends once. People assume that its the end of mankind that he is referring to, but maybe it is not. I will summarize what I mean.
There exists a deeper realm of consciousness for us that we, as human beings, have not realized. Many historic philosophers mentioned in the show have mentioned this in one way or another, but it is also a generally accepted principle that exists within most philosophies from all over the world. This realm of consciousness is also referred to in the religions of the ancient, and present world both. In the world of theology it may be referred to as "heaven", "hell", or the "afterlife", but is one in the same. What if when you die, your soul is "released" into a higher form of consciousness (what could be perceived as heaven or hell).
The quality of your soul will effect what course the "afterlife" takes for you.
I believe that Nemesis and Jacob are either aware of, connected to, or from this afterlife (or deeper level of consciousness, if you will). They both know that when you die, you go to (or possibly return to) it. But why are they at odds with each other? Well, they both have different ideas about humanity.
-Jacob believes in the goodness of humans, and believes there is a reason they exist in this fashion. He wants humanity to better itself so that when people DO die, their souls are as pure as they can be when they enter the afterlife.
-MIB wants the human charade to stop. After going through who knows how long living in his human shell, he is sick of it. He knows what awaits people after death, and believes they should just hurry up and die to get to their "real" consciousness in the afterlife.
How does this fit into the overall aspect of Lost? Well, perhaps humans are not done evolving yet? Maybe the final step in evolution is to reach that deeper level of consciousness without dying? THAT is how you enter the afterlife as the purest possible life force. Perhaps Jacob is trying to trigger this on the Island. But why would he try to speed up our evolution and not let nature take its place? Well, because we fucked up and the world as we know it just might be ending soon. He wants us to succeed.
Now I will try to explain some of the mysteries and subject matter of Lost and how they could relate to this theory.
The Black Smoke:
-It does not judge people as being either good OR bad, but determines if the subject's soul has reached its furthest potential. If it has, good or bad, it deems it no longer necessary for the soul to exist in human form any longer. It has been around since humanity came into existence. A picture of Anubis (a god associated with the afterlife in Egyptian mythology) was seen in the caves kneeling before it.
Richard:
-Flocke talks to Richard about how he doesn't age. Richard tells him that hes that way because of Jacob. Richard may be the only, or one of the only humans who has reached the new consciousness without dying. Jacob more than likely helped him to open his eyes. Possibly a double agent for MIB.
Ben:
-"I know what you are boy" Widmore told Ben during his visit. This has to be referring to what happened to Ben when Richard took him into the temple. There still isn't enough evidence out there to say confidently what really happened in there, but I would think he "cheated" Ben to the afterlife, robbing him of the chance to enter it with a pure soul, only to have him retain his human form somehow.
The Others/Hostiles and Dharma:
-As many have speculated already, they are not two opposing factions, but two groups that have the same goal but are going about it differently. They seek enlightenment. The Others take children to raise them from a young age in hopes that they can reach it. They also are not afraid to kill, because they know that no one they "kill" can truly be dead. The episode title "Dead is Dead" is both true and false. Yes, you die, but you are reborn as well. Dharma is seeking enlightenment through science. Their problem is they don't really know where to start, so they do a bit of everything.
The Four Toed Statue:
-Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of birth, rebirth and the northern sky. Jacob lives underneath it. I don't think anything else needs to be said here.
The Island Itself:
-The island is a conduit from our realized human existence that leads to this "afterlife". Lost is all about science, and if this afterlife concept was true, it would be plausible to explain it as our consciousness' existing after death in the form of energy. The energy the idiot Radzinsky drilled into in the incident.
The Temple:
-Not much is known about the temple. I can only speculate to the smallest degree, but perhaps is where Richard hails from. It may be the one place where one who is already enlightened may travel back and forth between this world and the afterlife.
Rose and Bernard:
-They had been living happily together on their own as we saw in the S5 finale. They weren't concerned with the bomb, or even dying. They tell us the only thing that matters is that they are together. If they die, they die. Rose and Bernard I believe have been meant to symbolize many of the aspects of Lost. Ok....they die happy and pure....so what? They have a better place to go to next.
So what is the moral of the story of Lost? Not to worry about dying because you go somewhere else? No. The show is telling us that life is not about the trivial. If we could only accept that there was something more out there after life, then such things as greed, jealousy and hate would cease to exist.
When you are rewatching, try to keep this idea in the back of your mind whether you believe it or not. Hell, its my theory, and even I'm not 100% sold on it yet. But it works. There is so much to this show to try to relate every last piece to one another, and only so much time I'm willing to put in a day writing about Lost =) I will probably write some more another time! Thanks for reading.
I will be dealing with some of the subject matter in Lost and how it relates to my theory about the main aspect of the show. But first, you need to know what I think may be going on.
I know you have all dissected the opening scene of "The Incident" a thousand times over like I have, but it's a good place to start. Nemesis says that humans come to the island, fight, destroy and corrupt and that it always ends the same. Jacob says that it only ends once, and anything else is just progress. What if what Jacob meant by "it only ends once", is merely that a human life only ends once. People assume that its the end of mankind that he is referring to, but maybe it is not. I will summarize what I mean.
There exists a deeper realm of consciousness for us that we, as human beings, have not realized. Many historic philosophers mentioned in the show have mentioned this in one way or another, but it is also a generally accepted principle that exists within most philosophies from all over the world. This realm of consciousness is also referred to in the religions of the ancient, and present world both. In the world of theology it may be referred to as "heaven", "hell", or the "afterlife", but is one in the same. What if when you die, your soul is "released" into a higher form of consciousness (what could be perceived as heaven or hell).
The quality of your soul will effect what course the "afterlife" takes for you.
I believe that Nemesis and Jacob are either aware of, connected to, or from this afterlife (or deeper level of consciousness, if you will). They both know that when you die, you go to (or possibly return to) it. But why are they at odds with each other? Well, they both have different ideas about humanity.
-Jacob believes in the goodness of humans, and believes there is a reason they exist in this fashion. He wants humanity to better itself so that when people DO die, their souls are as pure as they can be when they enter the afterlife.
-MIB wants the human charade to stop. After going through who knows how long living in his human shell, he is sick of it. He knows what awaits people after death, and believes they should just hurry up and die to get to their "real" consciousness in the afterlife.
How does this fit into the overall aspect of Lost? Well, perhaps humans are not done evolving yet? Maybe the final step in evolution is to reach that deeper level of consciousness without dying? THAT is how you enter the afterlife as the purest possible life force. Perhaps Jacob is trying to trigger this on the Island. But why would he try to speed up our evolution and not let nature take its place? Well, because we fucked up and the world as we know it just might be ending soon. He wants us to succeed.
Now I will try to explain some of the mysteries and subject matter of Lost and how they could relate to this theory.
The Black Smoke:
-It does not judge people as being either good OR bad, but determines if the subject's soul has reached its furthest potential. If it has, good or bad, it deems it no longer necessary for the soul to exist in human form any longer. It has been around since humanity came into existence. A picture of Anubis (a god associated with the afterlife in Egyptian mythology) was seen in the caves kneeling before it.
Richard:
-Flocke talks to Richard about how he doesn't age. Richard tells him that hes that way because of Jacob. Richard may be the only, or one of the only humans who has reached the new consciousness without dying. Jacob more than likely helped him to open his eyes. Possibly a double agent for MIB.
Ben:
-"I know what you are boy" Widmore told Ben during his visit. This has to be referring to what happened to Ben when Richard took him into the temple. There still isn't enough evidence out there to say confidently what really happened in there, but I would think he "cheated" Ben to the afterlife, robbing him of the chance to enter it with a pure soul, only to have him retain his human form somehow.
The Others/Hostiles and Dharma:
-As many have speculated already, they are not two opposing factions, but two groups that have the same goal but are going about it differently. They seek enlightenment. The Others take children to raise them from a young age in hopes that they can reach it. They also are not afraid to kill, because they know that no one they "kill" can truly be dead. The episode title "Dead is Dead" is both true and false. Yes, you die, but you are reborn as well. Dharma is seeking enlightenment through science. Their problem is they don't really know where to start, so they do a bit of everything.
The Four Toed Statue:
-Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of birth, rebirth and the northern sky. Jacob lives underneath it. I don't think anything else needs to be said here.
The Island Itself:
-The island is a conduit from our realized human existence that leads to this "afterlife". Lost is all about science, and if this afterlife concept was true, it would be plausible to explain it as our consciousness' existing after death in the form of energy. The energy the idiot Radzinsky drilled into in the incident.
The Temple:
-Not much is known about the temple. I can only speculate to the smallest degree, but perhaps is where Richard hails from. It may be the one place where one who is already enlightened may travel back and forth between this world and the afterlife.
Rose and Bernard:
-They had been living happily together on their own as we saw in the S5 finale. They weren't concerned with the bomb, or even dying. They tell us the only thing that matters is that they are together. If they die, they die. Rose and Bernard I believe have been meant to symbolize many of the aspects of Lost. Ok....they die happy and pure....so what? They have a better place to go to next.
So what is the moral of the story of Lost? Not to worry about dying because you go somewhere else? No. The show is telling us that life is not about the trivial. If we could only accept that there was something more out there after life, then such things as greed, jealousy and hate would cease to exist.
When you are rewatching, try to keep this idea in the back of your mind whether you believe it or not. Hell, its my theory, and even I'm not 100% sold on it yet. But it works. There is so much to this show to try to relate every last piece to one another, and only so much time I'm willing to put in a day writing about Lost =) I will probably write some more another time! Thanks for reading.
