This got stuck in my head in April, and then I got distracted with something else, and I found myself letting go of it. I’m not sure I mind; I don’t think I really had formulated what really needed to be said with this one yet. When I sat down with this today after cleaning up the music on my phone (because I need to carry my music with me all the time), though, it came to me.
Let me warn you: I was a huge fan of LOST (though I don’t like the name “lostie”) and when I think of what I want to explain, imagery from the last season comes to mind, so this might be a bit spoilerish. Forgive me. I will try to keep it to a minimum, but if you wish, close this now, go get caught up to the last season, and then come back. I promise, though, there will be no references to the numbers, the smoke monster, or unanswerable questions. This isn’t about LOST… I’m just using images and ideas presented there to explain and illustrate my point.
Very early in the last season, we encounter Desmond working for Mr. Whitmore. He’s being sent to go pick up Charlie, who’s scheduled to play in a concert with Whitmore’s son. Charlie, however, has no interest in anything so pedestrian. He’s had an epiphany. On a flight from Sydney to LA, he had a near death experience, during which he had a vision of another life, a happier life, one where he had love and a life with a beautiful woman. He knows there’s better. He knows that life can be fulfilling, and that the life he’s living now is empty and meaningless and he wants nothing to do with it. He tries explaining this to Desmond, but it’s not until he forces the car they’re in into the water than he’s able to trigger a similar experience in Desmond.
As Desmond has his own near-death experience, he, too, remembers another life, another time where he had love, joy, something more fulfilling than just being an errand boy. It becomes his mission to help others remember this other life, to help others he’s met to reconnect with this purpose and this life they’ve had, this love, this joy.
In the course of his mission, Desmond does radical, criminal things: we see him run down a man in a wheelchair, hitting him at full speed, only to return a few days later. Confronted by another, who believes he’s back to attack the wheelchaired man again, instead he emerges from his car and beats the other man… only to then tell him that he was helping them both, and then turn himself in to the police, while orchestrating a jail break.
All of this is not normal behavior. None of it is sane. And in truth, outside of a television show, it’s completely unacceptable; even as I’m discussing it, I’m not advising it as a means of reaching people. But it serve its purpose very effectively: in every case, the “victim” of these crazy attacks, the one subjected to Desmond’s crazy behavior, comes to a place where they see the truth of their existence, and they are ready for what comes next.
No, I’m not going to talk about what comes next. It’s not important to what I’m trying to get at. What I am trying to say is this: In the show, one man went to radical, crazy lengths, to demonstrate truth to those around him. He had the courage to lead the sort of authentic existence that left him with no regrets.
That’s an idea. A life without regrets. It’s a crazy idea. Have you ever thought of what it might be like to live a life without regrets? I’m not talking about being sociopathic, where you disconnect from the rules and niceties that make life in society possible, the lubricant that keeps society functional. No, I’m talking about living a life where you love freely with no expectation of return, so that when it’s not returned, you aren’t disappointed… but you never wonder what might have been if you had just taken the chance… and hey, if it is returned, wow, what a blessing and a bonus! What if you gave without expectation that you’d receive? What if you gave, instead of lending? What if embraced that impulse to live an authentic life, to risk losing a promotion that means more hours away from your family to spend that time with them instead? What if you passed up another night in to go out and spend time with your friends? Or what if you passed up another night out with your friends to spend a night in with your spouse? What if, instead of chasing the next best thing, you stepped out of the rat race and stopped to enjoy your life? What if you settled for less, and found that less actually was more?
It’s crazy, I know. To defy the standards around us. To say that I don’t have to keep up with the Jones? To say that I don’t have to get my kids into the best colleges by guaranteeing I get them into the best daycare before they’re born? To spend myself into debt, to work myself into exhaustion, just trying to keep up with a race I’ll never win? It’s crazy to insist that I don’t want to be part of that… and yet, the more I describe it, the crazier it sounds to be part of it.
So you tell me? Which is crazier: to chase an impossible dream that leaves you empty, unfulfilled, and without the time to spend with the people you care about most… or to defy the social conventions that say you must chase that dream, and settle for less stuff and gain more in the process? I don’t know… Maybe I’m crazy. Possibly. Still… I’d rather lead the life I want to live, than chase the one I can’t have.
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