Six years ago, I was a hot mess.  In 2001, my marriage went pear-shaped in a major way.  I spent most of 2002 dealing with the aftermath of that, until late in the year my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.  I spent most of 2003 dealing with her treatment and eventual death in December, on what would have been her 51st birthday.  In early 2004, I had my second child nearly seven years after the first one.  The day after I got back from maternity leave, they fired my replacement in my previous job, leaving me to do two jobs for six months, under the influence of post-partum depression and grief over mom.

So yeah.  My millennium started off kind of rough. The hits just kept on coming, with little to no breathing room in between.

By late 2004, I was sick of, and sick from, obsessing about my life and my past.  I had spent the last three years going over my personal history with a fine-toothed comb, trying to figure out exactly how my life had ended up where it was.  I was making myself crazy looking for that wrong turn at Albuquerque.

After three years, healthy reflection and introspection had turned into unhealthy obsession.  The more I obsessed, the more LOST I felt.  In September 2004, in many ways my life had turned around for the better. (Thank you, counseling!)  In other ways, I was as LOST as any passenger on Oceanic 815.

I couldn’t let go.

I couldn’t stop running from the community that could have helped me.

I couldn’t stop conning people into thinking I was fine.

I let my anger drive me away from love.

I let mistrust and dishonesty continue to infect my marriage.

I let my failures in the past color my present as a parent.

I believed the worst people said about me too much.

I sold myself short.

***

I had spent three years looking for “Why?”  Looking for answers to questions that have no conclusive answers, this side of a face-to-face with the Divine. (Still looking forward to that, BTW.)

The Divine showed up in the middle of my mess, as He tends to do, in a lot of different ways over the last six years.  But one of those ways was giving me something else to obsess about.

I read a quote from Winston Churchill once where he explained that you can’t just shut your attention off at the end of a stressful situation (like, for example, World War II or the Blitz).  You have to get it to unclench for a second, and shove something else into its grip. Preferably, something capable of holding your attention as well as the stressful thing did.

LOST has been an amazingly entertaining television show, a master class in writing and acting, and a cultural touchstone.  But for me, it was my beautiful distraction, at a time when I needed one.

It distracted my brain long enough to let my soul heal, because it let me stop picking the scabs.

I will miss it, but I’ve also realized in the last few months that it’s time to move into a new phase of my life. One with fewer and less compelling distractions–because I’m going to need all my attention (or most of it) for the tasks that lay ahead of me.

Namaste.

I generally enjoy and agree with most of Vozzek69′s insights into LOST, but I take exception to one thing he wrote about Everybody Loves Hugo .

She marched into LOST like she knew what she was doing, but backed it up with nothing but hard talk and a lot of rifle-pointing. She had a lame storyline, brought a very weak crew with her, and came to a totally useless ending.

Illana’s death wasn’t pointless. It was an illustration of an idea that is threaded through LOST in the same way that it’s threaded through one of it’s epic influences, Lord of the Rings.

In the Big Game of Good versus Evil, don’t rely on the “experts.”

See where cockiness gets you? Out in a blaze of glory.

Don’t put your trust in the people who have trained their whole life to be the hero.

Caught you by surprise, didn't it, O Eternal One?

Especially don’t trust the people who don’t want to question that they know what they’re doing.

Trust the messes.

"I may be bonkers, but at least I'm honest."

Trust the crazy people.  As Locke said in “White Rabbit,” the people who think they might be going crazy are usually the ones who are sane.  It’s the ones who think they’re the only sane ones you have to watch out for.

"I have no idea what to do next. And no problem admitting it."

Trust the uncertain ones.

"Sorry about the whole 'gunning down your girlfriend' thing, dude."

Trust the people who have nothing left to lose, and nothing left to gain (even if they’re dead.)

Trust the people that the Big Players have written off.  Trust the people who are beneath the notice of the powerful.

In this game, don’t trust the kings and queens, the knights and bishops and rooks. Trust the pawns, or better yet, those considered not even worth using as a pawn.

Because most of the time, that’s not where the real battle is won or LOST.

How bad is my addiction to LOST?

This bad:

My husband's equivalent of football widowhood.

And this bad:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Official_Lost_Podcast/April_19,_2008

(Yes, that’s me asking Damon and Carlton about Danielle’s backstory and Montand’s arm.)

And this bad:

Previously On iBard.

So it’s safe to say that I’m pretty emotionally invested in a satisfactory resolution to this story.

Maybe it’s just me, because of my obsession with story, but I don’t really care about every mystery getting resolved by the end of this season.

I agree wholeheartedly with EW.com’s Doc Jenson that what some people are calling “mysteries” are just… not.  They’re plot holes or continuity errors (and I’d like to see you create a show with a plot this complex without some of those).

Or in some cases, one person’s “mystery” is a LOST writer’s “intriguing but ultimately disposable plot point” — dropped after they found out they didn’t have to drag the story out for ten years.  You can’t gripe about an episode covering the mystery of Jack’s tattoos in one breath and decry the lack of a full explanation of why Libby was in the mental institution with Hurley in the next.

At the end of season 4, I wanted to know how Montand lost his arm–and I’m glad I got to see that.  (Well, sort of.  It ended up being kind of gross actually).  But wasting the creativity and energy of these amazing writers, who want to show us new stuff, on mopping up every abandoned plot point from the past five years?

Not to get too meta, but maybe some of those plot points were lost for a reason.  To serve the greater good of a better story.

I don’t want my very last season of LOST to be 18 episodes of exposition.

I don’t want the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, all tied up in a neat quantum physics bow.

I don’t expect the show to clear up the question of free will versus predestination for me.  (If the church can’t conclusively agree on that after 2000 years, expecting a group of network television writers to figure it out in six seasons could be expecting a little much.)

I want as much of the crazy, character-driven, unpredictable, breathtaking plot action that’s kept me watching this far, as they can possibly cram into it.

I want a rip-roaring, rollicking good story by the end of this thing.

In short, it may well be the beginning of the end…

…but it ain’t over till it’s over, baby.

At least in our story.  But our lives intersect with others’ lives in mysterious ways (see: LOST) and the role we play in their story is often wildly different than the one we play in our own.

I have been the villain in someone else’s story, just by virtue of the fact that I had, fought for, and/or won something she wanted.  (Come to think of it, I’ve filled that role several times over the years.)

I’ve been the quirky, Joan Cusack-ish gal pal who lacks a verbal filter in someone else’s rom-com story several times.

I’ve been the Bunny-Ears Lawyer in a number of work-related stories (although I generally aspire to Crazy Awesomeness).

But on the rare occasion, I get to be a White Rabbit–someone whose presence and actions invite others to enter into a grand new adventure.  I love that part.  Frankly, it’s often more fun than being the “main character.”

The other day, two remarkable, smart, successful people told me in a conversation in the real world that they (A) read this blog and (B) that it had an impact on them.  I was completely blown away.  The mental illusion I manage to maintain that this blog is only read by my dozen closest friends and that one odd guy in Latvia is probably a large reason I’m able to write some of the stuff I write here.

So for the two new friends–that’s my recommendation if you want to write more freely about some of the topics that are closest to your hearts–pretend nobody is reading it.  Total denial=freedom to say most anything you want.

It was one of those rare little glimpses of the impact I have on others.  It was very cool.  It was a little scary.

It reminds me of something I read or heard lately, about Moses viewing the glory of  The Holy Rear-End of God. Moses needed to see with his own eyes the goodness of the one he was following.  He needed a glimpse of something that proved he wasn’t just wandering around in the desert because he was crazy from…probably, too much time in the desert.  But the glory of God is too much for any mortal to take in.  So God gave him a quick peek at, as someone smarter than me described it, “where all the goodness of God had just been.” It was more than enough to inspire him to keep on doing what he’d been doing.

We never really know the impact we have on other people.  Which is probably for the best.  If we ever saw the full impact of our lives and actions on others, we’d probably either get unbearably arrogant or end up paralyzed by intimidation.

But every now and then, we get a glimpse, a little view, and even that can be breathtaking.  We see the glory of a place where the divine just passed by, and it keeps us motivated.

I hope my two new friends realize that what they said to me was that glimpse, and that it was miraculously well-timed.  My deepest thanks.

As a new media geek and storyteller at heart, I also love Alternate Reality Games (ARGs).  In addition to LOST’s previous two ARGs (The Lost Experience and Find815), movies such as The Bourne Ultimatum, and video games like Halo (ILoveBees) have used the format to successfully create great viral buzz and engagement.  (In fact, I got to participate in a viral campaign at my previous job that was very ARG-like, although I can’t really talk about it.  Suffice it to say it was very cool.)

So of course, when I saw the “commercial” for Octagon Global Recruiting during the season finale, I was all over it, and managed to wait out the server crush to sign up.

Today I got my first email from Octagon.

It basically confirms that LOST, and some element of the new Octagon-related ARG will be at Comic-Con in San Diego July 24, 2008.  Not surprising, since the show typically has a presence at Comic-Con.   Last year, they revealed a new Dharma Orientation video that hinted at this season’s time travelling bunnies, and prior to that, a character from their first ARG turned up and started protesting the Hanso Group at the Con.

The email also indicated that even if you were unable to attend their “recruiting session” at Comic-Con, their “full recruiting program” would be available online after July 27th.  The email also mentions an “exciting aptitude test” to give applicants a chance to show off their “unique talents.”

The email was cc:d to a “Hans Van Eeghen,” which is a name that simply screams “Anagram!” but I don’t have the time to unscramble it.  An email to his address prompted an out-of-office reply stating he was “currently on assignment in the field.”  I expect to be hearing from Mr. Eeghen at some point this summer.

An ARG is a complex game that sometimes blurs the line between fantasy and reality.  ARGs strive for an immersive interactive experience where the players feel as if they are involved in a real adventure or mystery that takes place via multiple communications media: web, email, IM, phone calls, voice mails, text messages, and in some cases, real-world events (like a character from the story turning up at Comic-Con).

When it comes to audience engagement, it doesn’t get much deeper or more powerful than an ARG.  They’re incredibly complex and involved to pull off, but when done well, particularly for a traditional media property like a movie or television show, they give the most ardent fans an opportunity to feel like they’ve literally jumped into the fictional world alongside their heroes and heroines.

To find out more detailed information about ARGs, check out unfiction.com.

Oh, and a hat tip to Mack Collier, who let me know on Twitter that the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, has also been up to some ARG goodness.

img courtesy mzacha on sxc.hu

One of the things Santa Hubby got me for Christmas was LOST Season 3 on DVD. Awe. Some. Which, of course, has just whet my appetite for Season 4, in all it’s Writer’s-Strike-abridged-but-awesome-nonetheless glory.

In the event you’ve been living under a rock since 2004, this video will catch you up on everything you need to know about LOST… in 8 minutes, 15 seconds.

And if you’re a fan, watch it anyway–parts of it are hysterical.

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