lost

So clearly, talking about Lost is a dated way to pass the time.  The show ended a few years ago and, honestly, stopped being relevant long before that save for the devoted following and the curious bystanders that wanted to know how it ended.  I have a habit of watching shows like that on DVD so I was late to the party and devoted a lot of energy to never finding out how the show ended. 

Last year a novel called a visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer and, frankly, it seemed an odd choice.  I read the first few chapters several times before actually getting into it and even now that I can admire the brilliance of the novel I am surprised that it won.  Not because it isn't good enough but because the the tenor feels wrong.  Almost as though the committee wants to change it's image and decided that awarding this novel was the best way to do it.

goon squad and the end of Lost deal with losing things we love.  Oddly enough they stray from the party line of realism and tell us that what we love can never be lost.  As Lost comes to a close, we see all the main characters have died or will die and, in death, have come together.  Bix, a character in goon squad, tells his friends that in the future (I suspect he is referring to facebook as the scene takes place in the early 90's) we will lose nothing but, rather, turn to spirits and reconnect with everything that we love. 

Are these explanations easy outs?  Mystical attempts to give people hope about a topic that is inherently hopeless?  Cunning ways for writers to infuse their media with both loss and connection, love and abandonment, while ensuring that the consumer has their happy ending?  The last is most likely I suspect.  But as I look at my life I can see that what frightens me most is everything that I have lost and everything that I will lose.  I can feel innocence and freedom and selflessness and the knowledge that anything is possible escaping me.  This is an important part of growing up, I suspect.  In the novel Dance Dance Dance the main character staggers though an indefinite existence, plagued by apathy as he is unwilling to devote himself to anything for fear of loss.  As the novel concludes, he accepts this.  He cries for all that he has lost and all that he will lose but wraps his lover tightly in his arms and prepares himself because he sees that it is worth it.  This is growth and maturity and it eludes me.  I do not have the strength for such acceptance.  What appeals to me more is Bix and Lost.  Explanations that free me from loss, infusing me with the knowledge that I stand to lose nothing.  No matter how much it feels like childhood has passed, I can cling to the knowledge that it will find me once again.  It seems illusory but I have to belief this.  I have to belief that what has been lost can always be found again and that the future is always infinite and that possibilities are never limited.  For time immemorial I can go back and try again and be young and be an astronaut or a fireman or a lawyer or a doctor or a janitor and have a parents that actually love me and not want to kill myself.  I can go back and regain everything.  I have to believe this but I fear I can't because it probably isn't true.  We lose so much.