What "Tabula Rasa" really means and why "the most important part of your life was the time you spent with those people"

Hey ya'll,

I've just been embarking on yet another sort of rewatch, by following a reactor on YouTube (s/o Elie Mose's videos), taking it from the start. It's got me thinking about the concept of tabula rasa (clean slate), and how it applies to our Losties. Buckle up, it's going to take a while but I'm so interested in hearing your thoughts. Love when Lost makes me go deeper than the actual characters, and just pondering about life itself.

Like many of you I guess, I've known people in search for a clean slate. The people who move around, flee their life to reinvent a new one, reinvent themselves. Hell, when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have minded at some point if someone proposed to me a "clean slate" (I put it in quote because I'm going to argue it doesn't really exist).

But without fail, I've never seen these people prosper when they were just fleeing their life. Unmistakenly, each time, their past problems would just come back around in their face, surprising them in that "but I thought I changed" way. Well, no, you didn't change, you just changed your circumstances.

When our 815ers arrive on a fated island and it's getting clearer and clearer that rescue isn't coming, they're all offered a clean slate of sort. Starting life anew in a community where no else knows you from before (it's only untrue for Boone and Shannon but, I mean, Boone soon dies; Sun and Jin but Jin can't communicate with the group at large; Michael and Walt but they don't actually know each other).

Jack says as much to Kate in the episode with that name. Three days ago they all died. What they did before doesn't matter.

But that's not actually what it means. What we did before always matters. We're all a sum of all of our choices, at any time. What matters, and I think Lost puts great effort into showing us that throughout the show, is how we react today to similar circumstances, rather than in the past.

What the tabula rasa actually offers is that: A way to change, make different choices, without being plagued by the people you knew you before and are always going to compare you to your past choices.

So when you inevitably fail, on your way to growth, when your past demons catch up to you and you make the "wrong" choice (the choice that shows you haven't evolved in a particular area of your life yet), nobody else but you knows the depth of that history. So you can make yourself believe. Believe that you're not just a broken record of bad decisions, believe that yes, next time you'll be able to get it right.

I'll bring it back to Jack and Kate, because it's so apparent in the way they love each other. They love the other for what they are, yes, but also for what they see in them. Jack just wants to get to know Kate, to be able to get to the point where she doesn't feel the need to run. But he never judges her, never wants or needs to know her past. That's so refreshing for her, it makes her want to be that version, the version who can stay put. In turn, Kate sees Jack's heart from the start and the way she looks at him like he's the best thing in this world (I mean, he is) makes him want to be good (he already is but doesn't believe it himself).

So, at the end of the day, yes, the most important part of their lives was the time they spent together. Why? Because it gave every one of them a chance at growth without the shackles that usually tather us in our every day life, meaning the ghost of our past actions. It made them grow and love each other for who they stood up every day and chose to be, the version they chose to embody.

And I think that's one of the most beautiful things ever ♥