Lost mimics my Life....kinda.

Lost mimics my life. And not just on a superficial level where the answer to the crossword puzzle John Locke is doing to pass the 108 minutes before pressing the button is the name of the protagonist of the ancient Sumerian epic I have had to read for my IAS 45 class. No, the damn show copies enough to make me wonder if I should take legal action against it.

 

In season 4, a mysterious group of “rescuers” land on the island, sending the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 and the few remaining “Others” into a frantic schism that results in those who trust the rescuers and those who trust the island (hard to believe there are any people in this category, but yes, some fools actually do follow the loopiest of the lunatics, John). While the one group kidnaps these island newbies, the other one actually works with them. And here is where the weird part begins.

 

In the second or third episode, Desmond and Sayid finally get off the island by helicopter only to pass through an electrical storm that causes Desmond, who in a previous season was exposed to high levels of electromagnetism, to begin taking quantum jumps between the present and the past (although, given the multitude of flashbacks and flash-fowards in the show, one tends to give up trying to understand what is now and what was then). With each jump, Desmond becomes more and more deranged, unable to recognize his island comrade, but still following his advice to fix the past up for his future survival. And what must he do in order to secure that the stress of the time jumps won’t cause his brain to rupture? He must find a constant. He must find something that he would recognize from his past in his present. As the leaps add more and more pressure, Desmond finally manages to reach the light at the end of tunnel, using his undying love, Penny, as his time defying rock.

 

At this point, one would probably ask what the hell I am on, or, if you are of the nerdier persuasion, where I could have possibly been exposed to enough electromagnetism to make these quantum leaps feasible? On the bright, I am not tripping on LSD, nor have I tinkered with the forces that dominated our universe. I have travelled up the I-5 though. And given college life, I would definitely qualify that as my electric storm. For all its benefits, Berkeley sure doesn’t let the mind rest as much as it should to fight of brain hemorrhaging. And I don’t just mean in terms of academics (although seeing hours of studying pay off just once would be kind of nice…), but I mean in terms of every possible aspect that is life up here.

 

Like Desmond, I landed on the island knowing exactly who I was, what I was capable of doing, and, although a little presumptuous, who the people around me were. But those unavoidable manure fumes driving through the 6 hours of farmland must have reorganized my brain structure in such a way that everything listed above was bound to change. A little slippage there, a little misjudgment here, and all a sudden a rush of insecurity comes upon you. The worse part, there is no rock.. at least there is no rock for us little freshmen, who are still trying to piece together what Berkeley life is. To the unobservant soul, these changes might be unnoticeable, but to me, it makes all the difference in the world. There is no one here to call you out on your change, as this is the “you” everyone up here has always seen.

 

The problem doesn’t just rest in the internal change; no, it rests in realizing that the bubble you lived in never really existed. The problem rests in the idea that there actually are bad people with even worse intentions. It rests in the fact that you can no long rely on what you knew of people. Is it possible that a rapist seemed to me as nothing more than a mild creeper? Or that the nice guy was actually being rather “nice” with quite a few girls? Or that the single guy that would fit in your bubble world can’t be trusted as the rest of the people around you have complete obliterated any hopes of him existing?

 

Sad, isn’t it? But think back, to before you passed through your own storm. Are you really that sure that you and the perception of people around you hasn’t changed? Are you sure that you didn’t just change yourself to fit with the world around you? Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones. Maybe you had a “Penny” coming up here. For the rest of us, may we find our rock before our brain bleeds out of our ears.

My Conclusion on the Natural State

This semester I am taking a class on Political economics. As a result, the past three readings describe the transition of man from a state of nature to a civil state. Being the amazing student that I am, I will completely digress from the topics that actually matter in relation to the arguments of these renowned philosophers to pose a question that no one has yet been able to answer me.

How did the savage man learn to make fire, let alone how to harness it for his own benefits?

As I see it, it is more than likely that even some primitive men had at some point become familiarized with the element of fire as a natural phenomenon; whether it was a result of lightning striking a tree or a volcano erupting even a brush fire resulting from unusually dry circumstances (I say unusually because the opportunity for dryness during the ICE AGE just doesn't seem to likely). At any rate, fire is an element of nature, and therefore naturally occurring in the environment.

However, in all the examples above, fire acts as a destructive force. While there is no denying that fire has its positive attributes even without being harnessed, the span of time necessary for its benefits to become noticeable is too great for a primitive man to correlate. As such, fire should have struck fear to all men who had in fact experienced its wrath and never crossed the minds of those who didn't.

With this in mind, why would any man want to recreate something he can only identify with destruction? Why would we present day humans want to recreate the plague even if it would benefit us in the long run in terms of population control and, by association, increased standard of living? We wouldn't for the simple fact that, like our less intelligent counter part, the benefits of this action are too far removed for consideration.

Now let's assume for argument sake the the first query was resolved and that man now wanted to create fire. How would he conclude the path to be taken? It is common knowledge as of today that slapping to rocks together results in the sparks necessary to start it. However, even in present times, only few can actually start and maintain a fire using such methods. So how is it that primitive man, whose only experience with fire came in the form of volcanic explosions or lightning strikes, could apply the same principles to something as common place as two rocks? Given the importance of fire as foundation for human development, even if early man took a trial and error approach, the amount of time it would take to discover such a trivial action as the almighty steps to success would deter our growth too immensely to be where we are today.

Once again, even if a solution is found, there is yet another obstacle; how did man learn the benefits of fire. Warmth and light are obvious, yet why the sudden idea to cook their food? What immediate benefit could these men have seen in spending the extra time in making a fire and preparing their food over it when every iota of energy in their settings could have made the difference between life and death? Taste was unlikely to be a primary concern, and it is unlikely that primitive man could associate cooked food to better health for two reasons. First, early man moved in a small nuclear unit, generally consisting of families. As such, he did not have a large enough group to observe a clear change in health and food preparation. Secondly, given the hazard of everyday life, food preparation could easily be overshadowed by other health risks. 

Fire--so simple and so accepted. Yet, its origin is so marred. Who would have guessed? Thanks Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau for distracting me so.