Lost and Finding Oneself in Uncertainty
The moral case for trying to find yourself when you can't know what's coming.
Everyone deals with the unknown at some point in their lives.
The kind of things people can't be sure what will and won't happen when they get into it. Sometimes it's completely unexpected that you can't possibly know ahead of time. Other times you plan ahead and things fall apart in ways you didn't want to. How you handle this uncertainty is central to building character. You can become the kind of person who handles it well or badly based on how willing you are to accept these unknowns.
What might happen when everything you think you know is upended is even more revealing. To be able to live with no idea how or why you're going to survive something will test you in ways you can't even imagine. Most people want to believe that they'll be able to handle anything that's thrown at them if only given the opportunity. They won't really know until they end up in that scenario.
If you can handle that, there's nothing you won't be able to get through.
Lost is all about finding yourself in such a situation. A mysterious island with no hope of escape and the constant threat to their safety brings most of them completely outside any kind of natural certainty in their every day lives. It's up to them to navigate the unknown, some times together and other times alone. But none of them can feel any kind of safety at any point during their journey. This is where they are confronted with who they really are. Stripped of anything resembling what they know, the truth of them ultimately must come out.
Fight or flight, survive or die, these are all most people can handle when everything is on the line. At least in the short term anyway. Once the initial shock of uncertainty wears off and more long term thinking becomes necessary, you end up evaluating what you used to know and comparing it to what you currently know. It forces you to consider that there were all kinds of certainties you had which weren't really serving you, even if they made you feel comfortable at the time.
Much more importantly, you find that there are uncertainties and unknowns which can actually help you achieve better things. You learn to embrace that uncertainty and in some cases enjoy it. Then it becomes about trying to find a balance between the two. Getting beyond total certainty but not completely falling into the abyss that not knowing anything can provide. In finding this state, you learn what really matters and become so much more than what you were.
You see that repeatedly throughout the show, with Jack and Charlie and Kate, even with Hurley and even the less savoury characters like Locke and Linus. They take you through not only the journey for them of the island itself, but where they began that journey when they understood the world better, or thought they did. At some points they also show you what might've been if circumstances had turned out differently. Creating its own uncertainty in that as well.
It's a fascinating journey, and I encourage you to embrace it.
Lost is currently available on Hulu in the United States and Amazon elsewhere.
Finally, it would be really great if you could share this article with other people on social media.
In addition, I would love it if you’d subscribe, whether it’s the free version or the paid version doesn’t matter, it’s going to mean a lot.