Quick break from photoblogging

to address my thoughts about the most recent episode of Lost. In said episode, the French woman, Danielle, brings Sayid to a man she has captured. The man had been wandering around on Lostaway Island, and Danielle believes him to be an "Other". In Lostaway lingo, an "Other" is one of a group of evil, heartless people who live on Lostaway Island and have been known to kidnap Lostaways, especially those who they believe to be "special".

It is pointed out in this episode that (colloquial usage of the term aside), anyone and everyone can be an "other". It just depends upon your perspective. And so, we get to see how even the amiable and seemingly trustworthy Hurley manages to maintain his huge girth: he steals and hordes food. After seeing that, I couldn't help but realize that it doesn't matter if you're one of the original forty-something from the front of the plane or a Tailie; it doesn't matter if you were shipwrecked 16 years earlier. On the island, it truly is every man/woman for himself. Everyone is an other.

The notion is reinforced by Sawyer's seemingly sadistically crushing a tree frog in his bare hands. To Sawyer, the frog is a disrespectful, possibly dangerou enemy. To anyone else, it's a cruelly tortured tree frog. To Sawyer, it is an "other". All of this sets the scene for Sayid's interrogation of the man Danielle captured. The interrogation take the form of a brutal beating. And after it is over, Sayid tells Charlie, basically, "You know how I know he is an Other? Because I felt no guilt in beating the shit out of him."

You might call it the tail wagging the dog. You might call it rationalization. Or you could view it as what happens when you get confused between the Self and the Non-Self. Sayid believed that his feelings about his actions pointed to objective truth, confusing the actions of his mind (his vrittis) with reality.

I am interested to see where Lost goes with this.

And now, I am off to see what is taking the Husband so long to come back with coffee!

YC