Q: Why does Locke feel such a closeness with the island?
A: Locke is "taking care".

Q: Taking care? Of the island?
A: Yes, but it is also an Aboriginal term. You have to remember that Locke has never been included. He has always been different in a society that stresses un-unique special-ness. In America, the beauty of the conformed individual is the height of belonging. Every child is told that they are unique, which of course, by definition, means that all children are the same. Even in the singular need to be different, we conform. Look at the cliques of high school. What Americans fight to deny is that few are truly original.Locke has never belonged. He forms relationships with voices on the phone simply because they were polite. because they tolerated. But Locke is unique in the fact that he knows he has always been excluded, and he doesn't resent it. He has used his societal isolation to observe others, to come to understand the desire-driven man. And all that he has sought, without resentment, is to understand his own place is the macrocosm. And so Locke, the disabled outsider, sought to take an internal and external trip of self-understanding. A journey to meaning. A Walkabout.

Q: And "Taking Care" is part of the Walkabout?
A: It's the core of it. The individual enters nature for a time of complete neutrality. Man strives to remove himself from nature. The human life is a journey of removal. To live contained from the rest of the world, from nature. Man is competitive in his essence. He wants more, he judges his life by his achievement of attaining the things that have been manipulated by man, that take him away from a natural state. The house, the car, the TV, the education, the career..none of these things are natural, or a part of the natural state.Locke is attempting to enter the only world where he has not been rejected, nature. He travels to Australia having readied himself in mind and body to leave this world and return to the neutral. He is told he will not be allowed to. Many people were caught by his anguish in Walkabout, and mistook the guide's rejection of Locke in that episode as a sign of his physical limitations. In fact, what Locke was protesting, mourning, was being told that the journey could not be achieved. That he was unable to reach the natural state.And then Locke fell on the island. And the limitation was miraculously removed. To Locke, when he reached the island, he belonged. He is where he is supposed to be. The natural state. Locke is on his Walkabout.When the Aborigine enters Walkabout, he learns where he lies in nature. He learns that all things which are organic have a purpose and a meaning, he tries to understand what he is doing there at the will of nature herself. The Walkabout is an attempt to reach balance, which is the true state of nature. The aborigine see himself as link in the chain of nature, connected to all parts of it and placed in that chain by the Ancestral Spirits with a specific charge. In the Walkabout, you are attempting to understand what responsibility you have been given in nature. If the read the philosophies of John Locke, not his political outlines, but his reasoning on being, it follows the theory of the Walkabout. The producers who conceived the Island of Lost used Locke's theories of being as the basis for this character and his personal philosophy for that reason.The mandate of "Taking Care" is the ultimate goal of the Walkabout. You understand your place in nature, what your balance is, and you understand what part you were created for in nature. The Ancestral Beings who have called your specific soul into being with a purpose have given you a mandate called "Taking Care", which means that your job, your responsibility, once you have achieved the Walkabout state of balance and being, is to safeguard nature. It loves you, and your purpose is to love it. You are in balance.Locke, in his state of being on the Island, knows that he has reached purpose of nature. And his days are defined by "Taking Care". But what happens when balance falters? What does it mean when you fall out of singularity with nature? Locke is about to find out. He feels that the continuing existence not only of himself, but all of the survivors, is contingent on balance, and he is about to lose his. What do we do when our God deserts us? Seems to deny us? Not to sound too pop culture, but what did Jesus do when he knew that the crucial moment was quickly arriving? Where did he go? How did he regain his commitment? His balance?

Q: So the key to Locke is Australia?
A: Yes and No. I'm not trying to be ambiguous, but you are looking for pat answers, and there are none to give. The reason that Lost has been so significant is that it is ORIGINAL. Does it have influences, literal? Philosophical? Intellectual? Certainly, and to understand those influences is to understand it's ultimate design, but in it's essence, the show is original. The reason you're resisting the concept is because it's hard to find originality anymore! Be proud, you are a fan of something with a limited precedent.

Q: So we won't find a key to everything on the island?
A: Oh, there might be a key, but it lives in the mind of the producers and writers! You could point out the astrological similarities, or the philosophical ones, but where the show goes is up to a handful of people who have a varied and educated background. Each of them is contributing to the overall scheme, so it will be a mixed bag of things.

Q: Astrological similarities?
A: I thought I would sneak that one by unnoticed.

Q: Nothing you do or say goes unnoticed., -------.
A: HAH! It was worth a try. Yes, the 14 main characters are comparable to astrological figures.

Q: Don't stop there, -------, which ones?
A: Oh, I don't even know if I could list them all. Since you wanted to talk Locke, how about we define him in those means?

Q: Great!
A: Well, let's see. The oldest observations of constellations as representative was the Mesopotamians. You go to the Cradle of Mankind, and they were recording the star movements, and giving the anthropomorphic meaning. In fact, the Babylonians used the degrees between the stars and to the planets to define certain measurements in their buildings, since they were viewed as divine. 16 degrees between Orion and Ursa Major, 42 between the Pleiades and Sirius, so on.To make a Zodiac, or a directional phasing of stars, planets, and other cosmological influences, you need a central point from which all other measurements are made. To the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the this was Orion. To the oldest civilizations on earth, Orion has always been the center of the cosmos, then center to being. Man in nature. Are you aware of the term "The High Man"?

Q: No.
A: It's a 12 mile long figure etched in ancient times into the Irish landscape. It can be seen from miles above but not below, and lies along resultant road systems in the area of Newgrange. The figure was there first, of course, executed in the prehistoric days of Eirean history, and the ley lines became road systems eventually. You understand the significance of that? Newgrange?

Q: Yes.
A: Good. It's rarely discussed accept in primo anthro-archeological circles, but the point being, he is the hunter of their Zodiac, the Eirean Zodiac. The arche-typical male who remains in balance with nature, man's need to survive, and of man in his primal aspect. Locke is Orion. Each of the main 14 characters on Lost can be found in the astrological cycles.

Q: Is Locke evil or good?
A: Which are you?

Q: I'm sorry, -------, am I what?
A: Good or evil. Locke, like every other person, is both. We have our good moments, our great moments and our moments of evil. To deny that is to deny human nature. The question you should ask is 'What would Locke kill for?'. He's actually already told you, if you were paying attention. You have seen him make very critical judgments, decisions that certainly should have taken in consensus. Instead, Locke kept the judgment in his own hands, keeping important information from the others. Not once, but several times.Has Locke made the right decision? He thought so, based on what he knew and what he believes to be true based on his own life and knowledge, but we all do that. If it was the right thing remains to be seen.

Q: Such as?
A: Why did Locke defer when Michael threatened him in the cave? When he told Locke that if he found him with his son again, he would kill him? Michael could have said, leave my kid alone or you and I are going to have a lot to talk about. He could have said, I'm going to talk to the others about your Michael Jackson need to be with my kid. But Michael threatens to kill. In cold and calculating anger, he threatens to end Locke's life. Now watch Locke's response.Locke isn't a man who suffers threats or fools, both of which Michael has been in abundance around Locke. So why? What is in Locke's background that he is seeing in Michael? Angry father? Threatened adult? Insecure man? Killer? I don't mean Michael per se, I mean who in Locke's background is Michael acting like? If you have been lucky enough to read Gavin DeBecker's book "The Gift of Fear", you know what I am pointing out.

Q: For those of us who haven't read the book?
A: Well, first, read it. Everyone should, and I do mean everyone. Second, something in what Michael said hit a nerve in Locke. Somewhere in his limited life, Locke has seen threats of terminal violence. Rage.He understood what he was hearing, and his movements were very explicit and exact. He was directed to play it that way. Every decision that we make is based on perception, and Locke is no different. But how will the others react to Locke's individual manifesto? To his taking the right of them all into his hands, even if he did it with the best intentions?

Q: It's alot like your ----- ---, isn't it?
A: Yes, in some ways. I've been told it was an influence, but the development of the characters and storylines on this show are unique, and I wouldn't want to take anything from what they have done. It's great on many levels.

Q: So Locke is going to make some decisions for everybody?
A: Already did it! If you've been watching, he hasn't made one or two, but several. Watch what he's been doing, and you'll seem them. Those decisions are about to come back on him and the camp.

Q: Walt?
A: Walt.

Q: Boone?
A: Boone.

Q: The hatch?
A: The hatch.

Q: Any others?
A: Yes.

Q: You're going to make us beg, aren't you?
A: HAH! Well, the island. The monster. The hunting. The sea. The deaths. Ethan. The other people on the island. Locke's forte is observing, and on the island, he has been a very busy boy. And here's one that you will get the germination of in this season, but not see the culmination of until next season, Claire's baby and Danielle. Locke has told you some things, if you were paying attention. Go back. See if you can spot what Locke has been up to, because it's all related and it's relevant to what is going to happen. Remember that Locke is in balance with the island, and that is his state of being. What if your world turned upside down? What would you do to get the balance back? And how rational is your thinking in your desperation? Understand that he, like all of us, is not inherently evil or good, but a mix of both based on his own life and his take on existence in general. And don't forget that it's just a TV show, a very good TV show, but just a TV show. Relax and enjoy it