Peaches En Randalia #49

I have spent the last two months watching the landmark television series LOST from beginning to end. I had a late start getting into the show, but, as one who, like a foolish few, is wont to say, “I’ve been busy creating my own alternate realities.” The show has knocked me out from the opening shots of extreme close-ups on a character’s eyeball to the various back stories, flashbacks, flash forwards, and, of course, the flash sideways that show all the characters somehow living an alternate version of their lives IF their flight, the legendary Oceanic Flight 815, didn’t crash on that mysterious island.

Truth be told, this could have been an updated Gilligan’s Island Meets Melrose Place, but, instead, the creators have forged a phenomenal metaphysical series of tales that have moved forward from beginning to end in one unpredictable episode and creative detour after another. I had the benefit of watching all the episodes back-to-back. Obviously, fans of the show who have been with the beleaguered cast during their various misadventures since the show’s commencement in September 2004 have had to endure incredibly long delays between seasons due to numerous factors. Like, let’s see, a writer’s strike didn’t help, and then, the length of filming and post-production is done in a very chaotic, and, at times, separate AND simultaneous fashion—often, seven episodes are being worked on all at once. If any show defined the classic cliché about Hollywood (actually, Hawaii, in this case): “hurry up and wait,” it is LOST. Oh, and it is also, on occasion, the most expensive show in television history, which doesn’t help their matters from time to time, not to mention the onslaught of characters who live, die, and are re-born, retrofitted, and severely transformed in some sort of weird alternate reality(ies).

Therefore, watching the show as one really long movie, with improvised moments, and carefully-scripted puzzle boxes filled with incredible mysteries has been a profound experience. Imagine a really great band, with the ability to introduce new and rotating band members during a lengthy piece of magical music, and the music NEVER stops—its just goes on for hour after hour, until, 120 hours later, it finishes in an epic conclusion.

Well, that is the LOST experience for me. And for someone like me, who spends much of his personal and professional moments wallowing in the pure beauty of an improvisational world, the show has given me yet another fresh perspective on reality, the meaning of life, and the consequences of one’s actions. In short, LOST breathes like no other artistic entity I have come across in quite some time, and its ability to move in an unpredictable manner has put me in a deeply philosophical mood for the last couple of months as I wander (and wonder, oh, childish wonder) through its brilliant passages.

The ability to create alternate realities. Why? Introducing color into the void. Toying with risk. Carving a different, unpredictable perspective based upon a loose idea. Experimenting on perfection. Dismantling the walls of Utopia. A Maker in the celestial robes of the Discombobulater. Ahhh…the true meaning at last!

Why stop at individual lifeforms when one can create on such a vast, mass level? Various, intricate, migratory detail-strands hidden in complex structures would generate a
fascinating blend of ‘sculptured chaos’. Let Fate begone and the Will leads the Way. Wandering down the hall in epic majestic glory—infinite imagination at His disposal: a newborn lord towers over a blank virgin sheet, waiting, pondering…

Hmmm…a creator shuns self-induced reality—escaping its own omniscience. Reality removal can only be short-term; otherwise, psychosis ensues. Or does it? If one has the ability to create alternate realities, does one allow these realities to evolve without control? Does the alternate reality exist without acknowledgement? With its own free will? A mixture of free will and predetermined fate? Do alternate reality actions occur without a creator’s presence? Does the tree create sounds in this existential forest? Are the actions ‘real’? Manuscripts written by a fool while on vacation from predetermined fate? Are alternate reality actions a form of escapism? A creator ‘forgets’ momentarily its own genetic code? Is genetic code manipulation crucial to any evolving lifeform? Is the creation of an alternate reality a form of genetic code manipulation? A momentary lapse of creator consciousness? Is that the answer? Introducing color—a code to crack the void? Who owns the void? Who owns the colors within? Does it matter?

Matter…hmmm…matter…how does dark matter affect a universe?

Is the creator aloof, an observer, or a participant in a reality-molding experience? Schrödinger’s cat—watch the cat in the box or don’t…hmmm…personal journey or experience? Can an alternate reality journey recreate the creator within the context of actions performed by another entity with its own free will? Is dark energy present?

Alas, is the dream reality? Does the subconscious comprehend what the conscious mind ignores? What if one no longer sees the line between? What to do. A statement, not a question. Would they follow? Tamper…tamper with the genetic code. All of the lifeforms, all of the worlds will need alterations.

Again, that bugger—no line between? LOST is the gateway to heaven, or, hell, or purgatory, the place between, or no place at all…just a place of pure imagination?

Instantaneous Imagination. Power. Control. Escapism. Free Will. Predetermined Fate. The Line Between. Alternate Realities. The Effect of Actions Upon Creator and Creation. Dreaming…Dreaming In His…

As IT should be. Every portrait has a reflection; every exterior, an interior.