Musta Got Lost

It is a strange quirk of the human brain that when the unknown is made known, the newly known appears common. I'm talking specifically about meeting someone new in a large but finite population, such as an employee at your office or parishoner at your church. You are introduced to a new person who works in a different department or on a different floor. Suddenly, you see this person all over: in the hallways, in the cafeteria, at the company-wide town hall meetings. Of course, you aren't really seeing this new person everywhere: it's just that you now recognize as a friend this formerly anonymous face.

It works the same way with songs. I noticed it during one of the great "name that tune" games in Dan Renaldo's office. It was me vs. Dan (as usual) with Zach and Stan also playing. Stan is about 10 years older than I am. Dan played a live song with a spoken intro. He seemed stunned that I didn't recognize it. Stan said, oh, this is J. Geils Band. The only J. Geils Band I knew was "Centerfold" . . . like I said, I was a little too young for them. Stan went on to identify the tune as Musta Got Lost, which I'd never heard before. Now, of course, I know the song and hear it "everywhere."

This post is about neither people nor songs, but I think it's a pretty cool title for the post, because it's about "Lost." This is a fascinating television series, now available in its entirety on the Internet. I enjoy it because it is a richly told complex tale of the survivors of a plane crash.

I'm sure that thousands of words and billions of pixels have been spilled over this show, since there are multiple subtexts and mysteries involved. But I wanted to talk about the themes of what brought these people to the flight (Sydney to Los Angeles) that crashed. I noticed that almost everyone was either on a mission, or was facing life and death issues. If it's been a while since you watched Season 1, or you have been preoccupied with moving to Madison or something, I've put together a chart. See below:

Why Were They On Oceanic 815?

Character	Reason for LA to Sydney	Reason for Sydney to LA
Jack	DEATH--retrieve the body of his father who died in Australia	DEATH--bring the body back to the U.S.
Kate	LIFE--she was running for her life from authorities	LIFE--the sentence she would receive?
Locke	LIFE-CHANGING MISSION to do an Outback walkabout	Was he successful? Did he find his destiny?
Hurley	MISSION to find the story behind the numbers	Was he successful? I guess so??
Jin and Sun	?? I have no idea. If they said why they were on that flight, I missed it.
Michael and Walt	DEATH--Michael goes to get Walt in Australia after his mother died.	LIFE--beginning a new life together in America.
Sayid	LIFE--must trick his friend to find the love of his life.	LIFE and DEATH--the death of his friend, the chance at a new life.
Boone	MISSION to retrieve Shannon from her abusive Australian boyfriend	Successful? Yes.
Shannon	Unknown so far--last I knew she was heading to New York.	LIFE--I assuming she's getting a new lease on life with Boone.
Rose	mouse over to see this Season 2 info.	Successful? No.
Sawyer	DEATH--to kill Frank Duckett, the "real" Sawyer.	Successful? Yes ... and no.
Charlie	MISSION to convince his brother to restart Drive Shaft.	Successful? No.
Claire	N/A--resident of Sydney.	LIFE --to give the baby up for adoption.

If you're curious what all the talk is about, check it out at ABC's website. I will alert you that I kept getting error messages using the viewer in IE, and Firefox worked better for me.