A couple of days ago I wrote:
Watched the latest episode of Breaking Bad -- one more to go.
Time to project my worldview on this epic mess.
There is no evil here.
Walter is clear: I made mistakes but my motives were innocent -- I was just trying to take care of my family.
And he is right. That's how I see it too: to me it's the motives that count. Motivationally we are all innocent.
Walter White -- as I see it -- is not a bad man: he is a man trying to take care of his family and doing his sucky narcissistic best.
And, in my experience of this life, this is more of a rule than an exception.
The motivational good tends to break bad.
Ordinary perfection. What can I say...
A couple of corrections are in order:
Watched the final episode of Breaking Bad -- no more to go.
Time to project my worldview on this epic mess.
There is no evil here.
Walter is clearer: I didn't do this for my family, I did this for me, I was good at it, I felt alive.
That's enough for me: doing something that you feel you are good at it is an innocent enough motive.
And as far as I am concerned it's still the motives that count.
Walter White -- as I still see it -- is not a bad man: he was a man who tried to have a good life, who tried to feel alive while dying.
And in my experience of observing this inevitably zero-sum life, trying to have a good life (which is motivationally innocent enough) often comes at someone else's expense. He tried to balance his interests against those of others the best that he could and his narcissistic best sucked.
So there you have it: the motivational good does tend to break bad.
Ordinary perfection. What can I say...
People might say: the finale was anti-climactic. Of course, it was. The show itself was the climax: we have witnessed Walter White climb the vertical of existential freedom for five seasons. But the agony-ecstasy of living has to eventually end. And tonight it did...