Get Lost....

In the TV show Lost there was a mythical island, no one knows if it existed or not.  I watched the first two seasons but couldn’t follow the ever changing and to me, confusing plot twist and turns.  Gilligan’s Island is more my speed.  I must admit I liked Mary Anne; her homey, not homely, country attitudes were always appealing to my sensibilities.  I enjoyed the idea of being lost myself on a deserted island  having read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island about a thousand times and wishing I could live the life of a pirate, from the perspective of a child not really understanding the horror and viciousness of piratosicity. 

 

 I still dream, not quite so often as before, about the seclusion and peace of an unpopulated island, the perfect weather, abundant food, all the creature comforts of course; I did say it was a dream, but that dream sure sounds nice.  As I was dreaming I was surfing the net looking for interesting topics to read about and I came across the story of a mysterious island with a mundane name, Sandy Island, located off the coast of Australia half way to New Caledonia.  This Island has been on maps since the late 1800’s but when a recent expedition was in the area of the Coral Sea they noticed the island was not listed on the ships navigation charts.  They double checked Google maps and confirmed the islands location and decided to change course to see for themselves.  

When they sailed through the middle of the island over thousands of feet of deep blue water the mystery was solved.  There is no island at that latitude and longitude.  Where did it go, did it sink like Atlantis, or was it fabricated like Jonathan Swifts Laputa?  There is an answer but to some the answers include serious nefarious inclusions into our reality.  

Maps are an important function of our everyday lives.  They help us get back home and help us find our way around.  The existentialist would say that maps help us define who we are in relation to where we are in the world or even in the universe, giving us meaning to our lives and purpose.  Maps also help us get lost, especially when we have trouble reading them or we put our faith in GPS systems that direct us to dead end roads or vacant lots, we’ve all been there, but to lose an entire island?

I did a little digging and found that the CIA (and please correct me if I’m wrong) has substantial control over the nations, and worlds mapping capabilities and could alter the maps we use.  Yes, I know a bit conspiratorial, but interesting non-the-less.  If this is indeed the case it explains why I couldn’t find that McDonalds in Paris California the other day; someone did not want me to eat that filet of fish.

On a more serious note, we rely upon the information we have on hand.  We use Google maps daily and use our GPS units to find our way around, but if those that supply that information have ulterior motives, you can dream about these options on your own, then we have a bigger problem than wondering where we are.

I think it’s safe to say that we are less able to rely upon the standards and conventions that have for years given us security.  Our politicians never tell the truth, our local governments are corrupted, our school system is broken, and all we have left is our belief.  We need to stand strong against the obvious efforts to destroy our very souls.  We have a mental map, a memory of who we are, a gift from God to all of us.  We can’t afford to be lost, or misplaced like Sandy Island.  We will be found, we will find our way home.

William Wordsworth:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

     Hath had elsewhere its setting,

          And cometh from afar:

     Not in entire forgetfulness,

     And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

     From God, who is our home.