So I’ve been watching this series on Netflix called Lost. This is the one that was on TV some years ago, where it is centered on this story about people who survived a plane crash and get stranded on a deserted tropical island.
This will have been the third time I have watched this series, as it has remained one of my favorites of all time.
I enjoy watching this series because every time I’ve watched it, in a different time of my life, in a different space, I see something new and something fascinating. I’ve come to recognize common threads that reveal the truth about who we are a human beings, why we suffer, why we seek, and what can unconsciously drive us.
It reveals the truth about what I’ve been doing to seek happiness and contentment my whole life, similar to how other humans seek, just as these characters on a show.
Characters like Jack, John, Sawyer and Kate, are always on a mission to do “something” to change their outside circumstances, with the hopes they will finally get to where they want to be. They fight and claw and scratch to get “saved” from the island, where it is apparent that they believe they will finally be happier, safer, better off, free.
The illusion of freedom always escapes them. Because no matter where they go on the island, what they do to be rescued, the small victories they win, the food and shelter they find, whoever they rescue, or whoever they kill, they always end up with yet more problems, and they get further and further away from being happy, from being free.
They run from the darkness which is depicted as the cloud of black smoke they call “the monster”, that consumes people in the jungle. Flashbacks intertwine with their present story, of things they’ve done in their old lives that haunt them.
They don’t feel safe in the jungle with the dark smoke, yet at the same time, they don’t want to live on the beach, where their eyes squint, blinded by the light of the sun.
Are these characters so different than we who suffer from alcoholism and addiction?
Is there desire to be saved so different then our desire for inner peace?
When Kate asked Sawyer why he was leaving them to go with John Lock, and stay on the island, when they finally had a real chance to be saved, He said to her “I’m doing the same thing I always do Kate… surviving.”
Is that true freedom?
Making decisions based on fear to merely survive, to just exist, compromising our truth to just stay alive?
Or is there more?
Is there another option?
Even though as the observer of the story, I can see that they just tirelessly run in circles, planning, scheming, either running from something or chasing something or someone else, never getting any closer to what it is they really want, they as characters in the story, do not see it.
Even though I know that they just need to slow down, to pause to see things clearly, and that all they need, in this very moment, they ALREADY HAVE, and all they’ll ever really need, EACH OTHER, they don’t know how to ever pause long enough, to stop to recognize it.
Whether they were together with the ones they loved, on an island or in a city, on a beach or in a park, it wouldn’t matter.
Why can’t they stop running long enough to see the beauty of the beach, the sun, the ocean waves and the coconuts that surround them, in the simple moments spent together, without constantly wanting something else, needing something else?
Why can they only relax in the seconds caught off guard, laughing and playing ping pong on the home made table made with plane parts and twine, before remembering once again that they aren’t home, they don’t have as much stuff, they don’t have as many “things” as they could have, in the way they think they should have them?
And when the THOUGHT sets in, the lightness fades from their faces, the frowns of worry appear again, and they are compelled by that thought that they must go back to planning their rescue.
Rescue from what? It appears they think it’s from the island. When after watching the culmination of their stories three times now, really what they are running from is themselves. What they run from is the darkness, the past, the pain and the disappointment of their lives.
In this series, We watch them work out these issues in their time on the island, we watch them repeat old mistakes or make new choices. We watch them suffer or heal. The ones who make peace with their lives, who forgive, who let go, come into acceptance that the rest of what they will know as life may be on the island, well… they are the ones who evolve and get free.
You may be thinking, how does this all relate to you?
Why should you care about this story?
You should care because this is YOU’RE story too.
You’re island is happening right here, your suffering on this island is optional, rescue is available TO YOU, though not by boat, by plane or submarine.
And your time is right now.
Finding My Authentic Self 