drawN to the darK Side

As I left my Yoga session last night, I noticed a few of my fellow Yogis wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the periodic table. Any other year and these graphics would go unnoticed, but I knew they were hooked on “Breaking Bad,” the TV series, just like me. Then, when I stopped at Starbucks, I overheard two different conversations on the same topic—Walt and Hank and Jesse. I knew we were all thinking the same thing. What is going to happen?

We have free choice, which is so evident in “Breaking Bad.” Walt chooses multiple times throughout each show and it is his choices each time that lead him down a path of destruction or one of affirmation. What guides Walt’s decisions is his love—love for his wife and his family, and then rivaling that is his love for his money. Walt lies, cheats, or kills to protect Skyler, to protect his family and friends, ultimately, to protect himself and his profit margin.  Making Walt all the more complex of a character is that he behaves with inconsistency, making him believable, more human. I knew a Walt, once; in fact, I do still, but not really, because does anyone? My “Walt” seems all kind and pure love, at times, but then just as often the other “Walt” appears bitter and angry. Heisenberg, the quantum mechanics physicist, is the perfect pseudonym for Walter White, the chemist, who taught about change and gradually demonstrated a slow reaction at the subatomic level–from a high school teacher to meth cook and to drug king.

I look at the choices in my own life—never as dire the ones in Walt’s—no cancer, no loss of home, no loss of job nor family. My mundane choices are nonetheless set by prior decisions, just as in Walt’s life. As an example, I choose to leave work early, so my workload the next day is increased.  I choose to skip exercise on Monday, so I work out longer on Tuesday. I choose to party hearty one night, I suffer the consequences the next. I willingly choose to stay in one relationship and painfully choose to say goodbye to another. Walt’s final choices are coming up…and I can hardly wait to see which path he chooses.