Thanks for another great post. I know you like David Milch's work. Between his addictions, recovery and art I think we could add him to a list with your definition of one who "breaks bad".
Have you read this old article about him in the New Yorker? http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact_singer My top 5 US TV series would be: 1. The Wire 2, Deadwood 3. John from Cincinnati 4. Mad Men 5. Breaking Bad British shows are a whole other list for me. ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, August 6, 2011 5:13:35 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Breaking Bad Along The Spiritual Path I've always had a fondness for outlaws. That's why it's a tad difficult for me to explain how I missed "Breaking Bad" when it first appeared on the TV scene. Perhaps it's that the comments I remember from people telling me to watch it left out the catalyst that inspires Walter White to shift from being a nebbishy high-school chemistry teacher to being a manfacturer of the world's highest-quality crystal meth. When I finally heard what that catalyst was, my ears perked up and I am now in the process of catching up on what I missed. I'm a few episodes into season 3. Walt's a trip, and definitely has some good character arc on him so far. To be honest, I'm still waiting for the ultimate "breaking bad" moment to appear, but I'll rap about that a little further down. Instead, in the moment on this particular lakeside park bench, I'm more interested in tripping on the notion of "breaking bad" itself -- which I define as breaking away from the herd, saying "Fuck it" to the rules, and making a conscious decision to follow no one's path but one's own. I've made that decision many times in my life. The very fact that I had to make it many times should attest to the fact that making such a decision is not necessarily permanent. :-) One of the first times I "broke bad" was related to LSD. No, I neither made it nor sold it -- ever -- but I did partake of its inner journeys many times. During one of those journeys I realized that the view of the world and how it works I was being presented on LSD was to some extent antithetical to the view of the world and how it works I'd been taught all my life. And, since LSD was about to become illegal, it was also antithetical to following the rules. So I had to decide whether to favor my intuition that there was something of value to be found in these inner visions, or favor the "Don't go there...you'll poke your I out" propaganda being served up to me by the so-called real world. I decided to break bad, and go for the inner experience. I've broken bad many times since, and decided to do something that defies logic and defies the advice of my betters, and in retrospect it was always a correct decision for me to do so. I decided to become a TM teacher rather than focus on what my betters told me was a better opportunity in the world of business or academia, and I've never regretted it. I've similarly never regretted walking away from the TMO when it no longer fulfilled the needs of the natural tendency of my mind. I broke bad many times while studying with Rama, and even bigger when I walked away from that study. Possibly the biggest breaking bad moment for me was deciding to move to Paris, having only enough money to live there for a few months. It made no sense at all, but it worked out. Breaking bad sometimes has a tendency to do that. But then again I never decided to break bad as BAD as Walter White does. My breaking bad moments were mere "baby steps" compared to his giant steps, and legal. Mainly. And when I broke bad I tried to be honest with myself about what I was choosing to become by breaking bad. Walt -- so far in the series -- doesn't have that kind of self-honesty. I mean, the dude has broken bad so BAD that he now makes his living by cooking one of the most debilitating drugs in history, and he never thinks about that the damage that his "product" does on the street. He has been responsible or partially responsible for the deaths of (by my count) 172 people, and he still tells his lawyer -- and himself -- that he's not a Bad Guy. I decided to watch this series because someone finally clued me in to its magic in terms of character arc. I now agree with their assessment, but I'm still waiting for the defining -- for me -- moment of character arc to take place, the moment in which Walter can embrace his Inner Bad Guy. That's gonna be one helluva television episode.
