I just completed my final paper in my final Bethel class. Well maybe that’s not entirely true. It’s my final class until I start up Master’s Degree # 2. I’m still completely convinced some future commencement ceremony will provide yellow sashes and a super summa Latin title. Ridiculous they do not. I smell a provost petition my next go ’round.
The class is on the Book of Esther, and obviously we had to pick some topic within that short narrative to expound upon. So, I picked characterization. How could I not? Delving into what makes people tick is what makes me tick. Understanding people’s backgrounds, life experiences, wants, needs, desires, fears…all of it. That woven web is the beauty of life, really. Including, I suppose, all the spiders that get caught in the never ending stickiness…
I used to be afraid of spiders. Now I have an uncanny knack for spotting them from afar, trouncing them, and sending them swirling down plumbing pipes back to the sewer where they belong. With all the other venomous losers.
Wait, wait, wait! That metaphor is so cellophane even I can’t stand it! Just pretend you had no idea what I was talking about.
(I really do dislike spiders, though. As well as most of the metaphorical ones.)
Back on point. Characterization. Yes, that. As I was writing my final paper, dissecting Queen Vashti’s reasoning behind telling King Xerxes to go ___________himself when he commanded her to parade around buckcherry naked in front of a bunch of drunken men, I realized it reminded me of my favorite former TV show – Lost.
(Btw, I did provide fair warning that my thought process is kind of hard to follow occasionally, therefore I have no feelings of shame or empathy right now).
Lost was a character study. While it had twists, turns, invisible friends, tailies, Others, other-Others, incest, aliens, and a whole slew of additional totally normal subplots, the overarching theme was one of what makes people tick. What binds people together. What causes people to manipulate. What attracts people to one another. What becomes understood between people. What goes unsaid between them. You know…all the stuff that kept me coming back week after week.
I miss that show terribly. Kate, the female protagonist, had this thing-ish for Sawyer, but it was really only so she wouldn’t have to face her real feelings for Jack. Sometimes she was annoying, but mostly she was cool. She knew more than she gave herself credit for. Really I bet she figured the whole thing out inside the first season, even though she alleged to be confused throughout the remaining ones.
Lost has been off the air for a while now although it feels like forever. Which means, I guess they’re off the island and back to their fake little pre-plane crash lives while I’m pretending to be satisfied with watching Modern Family in its place.
There’s definitely no Jack on that show. Or anywhere else.
