John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Mourning Badly (SPOILER ALERT!)

It has been over a week since I first learned (as part of several other “spoiler alerts”) that Walter White of the TV series Breaking Bad dies in the series finale.

Even though he was only a fictional character in a fictional TV series, I got attached to Walter (or Walt, as I –and those who knew him well–preferred to call him). And even with nearly 10 real days having passed to grieve the death of a made-up person, I am not progressing well and unable to fully come to grips with his demise (as well as the show’s demise).

It’s not that I support glamorizing meth dealers in any way. Nothing could be further from the truth. But there’s something about Walt that I related to and made me cheer for him, despite his morally ambivalent situation that turned into morally atrocious nightmare but still somehow was understandable at some level.

I had a soft spot for Walt from the start because in my college intro to philosophy course we were given a hypothetical question about a husband and wife where the wife was dying of a terminal disease and the husband had to break the law to obtain the life saving drug he couldn’t afford. I was the only one in the class who vocally supported the husband stealing the life saving drug as morally justifiable under the circumstances. And I still do. And would like to hear my former classmates explain to their spouses tonight–for old time’s sake–why they wouldn’t be able to justify stealing the miracle drug to save their life.

That hypothetical was, more or less, the basic plot for the series Breaking Bad. With a few new variables….and unintended consequences.

I am not saying that Walt represented getting in touch with the inner meth kingpin that lives deep down in every middle-aged man. Not at all. But he did represent the getting in touch with the inner king, of sorts, that lives deep down in every man and wants to find a voice before he dies. Walt did realize that part of himself before it took over and became an ugly and dangerous tyrant that ultimately destroyed him. But he made the journey. And it was an rewarding TV journey to follow. From milquetoast repressed cowardly “soft man” to living out every instinct he had repressed for so long….and taking it to it’s logical extreme.

“Every virtue, taken to an extreme, becomes a vice” taught the ancient Greeks. I learned that, too, in my intro to philosophy course.

As Walt explains to his long suffering wife in one of the final scenes. “I did it because it made me feel alive.” Isn’t that what each of us is after in our own less destructive and more conventional way?

As fictional characters go, we lost a good one last week.

RIP Walter (Walt) White.