Continued from previous page . . . to any product, but power. This man also, like Walter White, was human. He loved, and was loved. He could be kind as well as cruel. He worked hard and committed himself fully to his ideals. Who was this poor, lost soul? His name was Adolph Hitler. Now, we all know who that man was. The legacy that he left behind was one of malevolence and madness. He didn’t step up on a podium one morning and demand the murder of hundreds of thousands of people by the end of the day and then it happened. We are mistaken in thinking that the devil shows up with horns and a pitchfork – a monster recognizable from a distance. He is not dressed as a demon, he is dressed in human trappings with a sense of humor, endearing traits, and capable of engaging conversation. How was Hitler able to justify the mass murder of multitudes and convince thousands to ride shotgun with him? Our ability to rationalize gave this kind of man life. At what point do we draw the line between right and wrong? At what point do we recognize that we walked over that line? We unfortunately don’t live in a world with white and black hats, Dudley Do-rights and Dastardly Dans. Black and white go to shades of indiscernible grey. We, as human beings, are capable of incredible good and conversely, incredible evil. We have free will. And how we go from one end of the spectrum to the other is measured in inches, not miles. We develop a higher tolerance to the corruption of the soul. We have the ability to justify any decision made, so that it is understandable on an intellectual level, and therefore acceptable on another. Is Walter White a hero with bad traits or a criminal with a good side? The division between the two is blurred and that is where we step in with him. Do we buy the rationalizations? Where does the act of understanding the decision make the mental leap into acceptance? When do reasons turn into excuses? Amid this train of thought, let’s throw in Jesse Pinkman, the alternate protagonist of the series and another portended hero of the story who functioned as its broken moral compass. He too, was a sympathetic character but for different reasons. Unlike Walt, who walked progressively towards the darkness of night, he bounced back and forth between good and bad. That, and the fact that he was always at the business end of someone’s fist or a boot. He too, participated in illegal and immoral activities glossed over with a veneer of logic. No matter what the appalling deed, his tendency was then to experience guilt and remorse for his actions and try to make things right in his own misshapen way. I actually wanted him to escape at the end and do better with his life; he had “potential” as we all do. He had plenty of opportunities to leave, but again
in this story, he took a skewed stance on a virtue called loyalty and chose to stay. What was dressed as loyalty was actually cowardice in disguise. He became the eternal victim. The moral of this story can be encapsulated into one word: Beware. These are times when there are endless activities and choices we can access and, as a result, we make decisions on them routinely. These are times when heroes are defined by their talents rather than their virtues. Decisions can be made like a coin, a coin with one body but two entirely different sides. The action we choose, whether good or bad, will result in only one side of that coin facing up after we flip it. As a species, we have been around long enough to have accumulated tremendous knowledge and subsequent power over our environment. We can justify any decision, evil or immoral, if we think about it long and hard enough and come up with a way to explain it. A friend of mine said, “If Walter White had God in his life, he wouldn’t have ended up like he did.” I agree that if we don’t have a strong, functioning moral compass, we can be pulled into bad decisions with a subsequent darkening of the soul that spreads slowly like a cancer. We all need to set our own compasses for true north and when, through our course on life’s journey, we stray, we reference that compass and adjust our courses accordingly to get us back on track. With an exception for the rogue being that was born with an extra sociopathic chromosome, we all inherently know what is right and what is wrong and whatever value thrives and defines us is the one that we feed. Personally, I am Christian, but it seems to me that all religions or humanitarian laws, when distilled down to their purest form, share many of the same tenets: treat others as you want to be treated, own only what is yours (in possessions and accountability), forgive. If we don’t have this or some version of it our lives, we all have the potential to become Walter Whites or Jesse Pinkmans. And that is not an accolade. As I conclude, I don’t want to leave you in a sad, depressing place – in fact, quite the opposite. My hope is to remind all who read this that we have options and autonomy, and can move in a direction where heroes can be heroes with white hats. We are defined by our actions, which are guided by our thoughts, which we all have 100% control over. The world can stop being random. Can we all take a moment when making decisions to ask ourselves, “Am I making this decision because I can justify the easy way out? Or, can I define it as wrong and I need to make it right?” Accepting that “doing the right thing” usually translates into taking the more difficult path, owning responsibility for our actions and accepting those consequences, no matter how dire. However, taking that higher, more challenging road builds spiritual strength and endurance and being able to live with oneself after the deed is done, is something that all the money and power in the world can’t ever provide. It’s then that we can “Break Good.”
Actor Bryan Cranston portrays Walter White Photo by Gage Skidmore
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February 2014