The (Breaking) Bad Path to Enlightenment & Sobriety

Foreword

This is an edited compilation of my Breaking Bad-themed blog posts from my JOIN THE SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION: LIVE BEYOND YOUR EGO. The blog is at sobrietybytamingyourego.WordPress.com.

The blog is based on and inspired by my first self-help book, Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, by Understanding Your Ego. More info at www.lulu.com/spotlight/leewriter.

Contents

Foreword

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: THE BEGINNING OF THE THE BADNESS

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Pilot

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 2: Cat's in the Bag

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 3 - …and the Bag is in the River

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 4 - Cancer Man

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 5 - Gray Matter

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 6 - Handful of Nothin'

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE: Episode 7 - A-No-Rough-Stuff-Type-Deal

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHEMISTRY

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Introduction

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 1 - Seven Thirty-Seven

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 2 - Grilled

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 3 - "Bit by a Dead Bee

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 4 - Down

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 5 - Breakage

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 6 - Peekaboo

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 7 - Negro y Azul

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 8 - Better Call Saul

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 9 - Four Days Out

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 10 - Over

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 11 - Mandala

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 12 - Phoenix

CHAPTER AND SEASON TWO: Episode 13 - ABQ

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: THE EGO MAKES BAD SO EASY TO DO BUT GOD POINTS US TO THE LIGHT OF TRUTH

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 1 - No Más

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 2 - Caballo sin Nombre

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 3 - I.F.T.

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 4 - Greenlight

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 5 - Más

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 6 - Sunset

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 7 - One Minute

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 8 - I See You

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 9 - Kafkaesque

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 10 - Fly

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 11 - Abiquiu

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 12 - Half Measures

CHAPTER AND SEASON THREE: Episode 13 - Full Measure

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: WALTER IN 3D: DEEPER IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW, DARKER, AND DEADLIER THAN EVER

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 1 - Boxcutter

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 2 - Thirty-Eight Snub

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 3 - Open House

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 4 - Bullet Points

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 5 - Shotgun

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 6 - Cornered

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 7 - Problem Dog

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 8 - Hermanos

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 9 - Bug

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 10 - Salud

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 11 - Crawl Space

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 12 - End Times

CHAPTER AND SEASON FOUR: Episode 13 - Face Off

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: FROM BAD TO WORSE TO BETTER…FOR NOW

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Intro to the Final Chapter of Badness

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 1 - Live Free or Die

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 2 - Madrigal

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 3 - Hazard Pay

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 4 - Fifty-One

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 5 - Dead Freight

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 6 - Buyout

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 7 - Say My Name

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 8 - Gliding Over All

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 9 - Blood Money

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 10 - Buried

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 11 - Confessions

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 12 - Rabid Dog

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 13 - Trip to Hajiilee

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 14 - Ozymandias

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 15 - Granite State

CHAPTER AND SEASON FIVE: Episode 16 - Felina

Analysis/Comments On the Ending to the Badness

Links to my Other Titles

We could be living in a heaven on Earth right now. Crime, poverty, war, violence, conflict of all kinds, and hunger could be wiped out in an extremely short time if all human beings understood the truth of who they are, and who they aren't. Which is to say, individuals don't have a narrowly defined, separate self that divides them from all other sentient beings. There is no division between observer and the observed. As Zen Buddhists realize and practice the truth of unity - the original Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, gave us the Four Noble Truths. The centerpiece, the hub around which all other Buddhist principles revolve, is this: The cause of most human suffering is that people do not understand the nature of things. That is to say, there truly is no difference between the observer and the observed despite appearances to the contrary.

CHAPTER AND SEASON ONE

THE BEGINNING OF THE BADNESS

Pilot

In the mega-hit cable TV series, Breaking Bad — http://sharetv.org/shows/breaking_bad — Walter's ego-generated pride shows when his transformation from high-school chemistry teacher to meth cook begins. Embarrassed by the photos taken by one of his students and sick of his demeaning job at the car wash, and knowing he needs to make a lot more money to pay for his cancer and to make his family financially secure after he dies, Walter quits his job at car wash in dramatic fashion, yells at owner while grabbing his own crotch: Wipe down this.

He goes on a drug bust with brother-in-law Hank, and sees former student Jesse Pinkman escape through a window. He later confronts Jesse, says Jesse can either let Walter be his partner or he'll turn Jesse into the police.

After Walter makes a batch of meth, Jesse samples it, exclaims, You're a damn artist. This statement goes to Walter's head, specifically, to his ego-generated pride. Walter thinks he's really something special. This feeling that he's so great and talented at cooking meth, an illegal but vastly more exciting and lucrative activity than teaching high-school chemistry, is a thread that shows up throughout the series.

But before I comment further on the misery and delusions that the egocentric mind, or Malignant Egophrenia, as Paul Levy (http://realitysandwich.com/) calls it, let's review the major events from the pilot:

• A man (Walter White) dressed only in plain white underwear (tighty whities) drives a RV wildly down a desolate highway in the New Mexico desert. An unconscious man (Jesse Pinkman) sits in the passenger's seat with a gas mask on, his head on the dashboard. Two more unconscious men slide across the RV's floor until the vehicle veers into a ditch.

• The hyperventilating Walter climbs out of vehicle, puts on shirt that hangs from side-view mirror, re-enters RV and retrieves video camera, wallet and a gun. He records a cryptic, hand-held farewell to his wife and son. I just want you to know that no matter how it may look, I only had you in my heart. That said, he faces the oncoming sirens, gun in hand.

• Flashback to his birthday three weeks earlier: Wife Skyler hands Walt a plate of eggs topped by veggie bacon that spells 50, then banters with handicapped son Walter, Jr. Afterward, Walt drops Junior off at same high school where Senior teaches chemistry.

• Later that day, one of Walt's more disrespectful students witnesses him moonlighting at a car wash for additional income. The encounter is especially belittling since the student laughingly photographs his teacher as Walt wipes down tires on a customer's vehicle.

• A now publicly humiliated Walt returns home where Skyler has organized a surprise birthday party for him. Among the guests is Walt's gregarious brother-in-law, Hank Schrader, a DEA agent on the local news for busting a methamphetamine lab. Walt asks Hank how much money was recovered at the crime scene. Hank: $700,000. Not a bad haul.

• Hank then invites Walt to accompany him on a bust. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, a woman fusses over Skyler's pregnancy and notes that she's hardly even showing.

• Another day at the car wash and the financially strapped Walt collapses and is taken away by ambulance. At the hospital, a doctor verifies the worst. The non-smoking Walter has inoperable lung cancer.

• The detached Walter says, Best case scenario, I'll live maybe another couple years.

Walt returns home from doctor's office but says nothing of his diagnosis to Skyler.

At the car wash, he explodes when his boss asks him to wipe down cars again. Walter assaults the display racks. Wipe down this! he shouts grabbing his crotch. AND SO THE TRANSFORMATION OF WALTER WHITE BEGINS.

Walter joins brother-in-law Hank at drug bust. As Hank and other agents make arrest inside, the chemistry teacher sees ex-student Jesse Pinkman escape through a window. That night, Walt confronts the baffled meth dealer. Walt tells Jesse they can either become partners or Walt will turn him in. You know the business, I know chemistry, says Walt.

And thus begins Walter White-Jesse Pinkman Meth Inc.

Walt goes to school, steals beakers, flasks and protective aprons. Jesse arranges to buy a used RV so they have a mobile, hard-to-detect meth lab.

The two drive out to the desert where Walt strips down to his skivvies, hangs his pants and shirt on the side view mirror, then gets to cooking the purest crystal Jesse's ever seen. You're a damn artist, he says.

Jesse takes a sample to Krazy-8, a drug dealer who happens to be his former partner's cousin. Cousin Emilio, out on bail, believes Jesse ratted him out so the three drive out to the desert where Krazy-8 asks Walt if he wants to switch allegiances. Before he can answer, Emilio recognizes Walt from the police bust. Death threats ensue.

Jesse runs but trips, knocks himself on a rock. Walt barters for his life by promising to reveal his cooking artistry so Emilio ties up Jesse and then goes to watch Walt work his magic. In the Winnebago, as Walt prepares the ingredients, Emilio throws a cigarette out the window, thereby starting a brush fire.

Inside, Walt mixes chemicals that produce a deadly smoke. He dashes out, escapes the two drug dealers and avoids the bullets that flies through the RV wall. The smoke eventually kills or at least severely injures Krazy-8 and Emelio.

Walt unties and puts gas mask on Jesse, then drags and drops him on passenger's seat in RV.

Flash-forward ends. Back to opening scene: Sound of sirens close in, Walt stands in the middle of the road. He tries to shoot himself. To his dismay, the safety is on. His efforts to unlock it simply result in a pointless misfire. Suddenly, fire trucks, not police cars, appear. Walter stashes the gun in the back of his underwear. Jesse, sporting a black eye, comes out to join him. Walt's first day as a meth cook leaves him spent, shaken, but also invigorated.

At home, Walt meets his wife's troubled queries with atypical sexual aggression. A stunned Skyler asks,Walter, is that you?

The compulsion to seek self-identity is one of the banes of the human condition. People have this need to know who they are, what their essence is. There is an assumption that they need to set themselves apart from everyone else by finding themselves. Walter is tired of being an inconsequential high-school chemistry teacher. And although he tries to convince himself and others that the sole reason he cooks meth is to provide for his family's financial security, that's not the whole truth. Walter seeks a new identity and as he grows more proficient in making meth, he grows more firmly entrenched in his new identity; master meth cooker, and then later on, drug kingpin. Eventually he uses Heisenberg to encapsulate his criminal persona.

As I point out in my first book, Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, By Understanding Your Ego - www.lulu.com/spotight/leewriter — your true self isn't a limited, narrow, laundry list of traits and demographic facts, or your career or who you're married to or how good you are at some activity. There is no fixed, magic pill, neat little label that defines the real you. The true you is the consciousness that's aware of you and the world around you. In other words, it's that being that looks on as you live your life, not the things you do. As Eckhart Tolle notes in Silence Speaks, many people mistake the form and content of their lives for their identity. Your self is the spirit, the awareness that's deeply connected to all other life in the universe, the mystical energy that keeps your body and mind alive until physical death, and then your spirit, which is immortal, continues on in some form, forever.

For alcoholics and addicts, on a subconscious level, they come to identify themselves as an alcoholic or addict. They don't say that to other people or consciously think that but in their unconscious mind, they're thinking that. When recovering alcoholics say they have an urge to drink, that's really their ego trying to pull them back into their old, dysfunctional lifestyle. Their ego is all about putting people in boxes, narrowly defining who everyone is. For the recovering alcoholic or addict, the ego looks to the past for cues to define the self.

Obviously the addict/alcoholic used to abuse drugs or alcohol (or both) so the urge isn't only to alter the individual's state of mind, it's also the ego's way of maintaining a safe, secure, albeit dysfunctional, self-identity.

So remember you don't have to drink - or take drugs, or gamble, or overeat, etc. — to be happy. Your legacy is the effects you had on other people as a result of your actions. But your actions aren’t you. They are the result of your ever-shifting, fluid self.

So today, if you don't drink, then you're not acting like a drunk or an alcoholic. Our self-identity is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Walter White comes to think of himself as meth cook so that's how he behaves. I told myself for about seven or eight years that I drink, therefore I am. So that's what I did every day and/or night: drink, drink, drink. I thought I had to create a specific, narrowly defined identity for myself. Mine was drinking. Now I realize that every human beings' true nature transcends the personal. We're all capable of much more than what we've done in the past. But you can't convince Walter of that.

Episode 2

Cat's in the Bag

Recap of the episode:

• Walt and Jesse get a tow out of the ditch from a Native American. They say thanks, hand him a wad of cash.

• The two decide their partnership will end after they dispose of the two bodies in the back of the RV - Emilio and Krazy-8. First major complication of the series: one of the men, Krazy-8, isn't dead. Thinking he'll soon die from the poisoning and his injuries from the explosion Walt created, they agree Jesse will haul the bodies back to his house. Walt and Jesse part ways, assume Krazy-8 will die.

• He doesn't die and to Jesse's chagrin, he finds an RV door open and Krazy-8 gone.

• Walt speeds toward Jesse's place after Jesse phones him with the missing body development. Walter finds Krazy-8 staggering down the street. He eventually stuffs the escapee (unconscious after running into a tree) into the trunk of his car.

• The two then argue about what to do next. Their first priority is to dispose of Emilio's body and destroy the evidence. Walt: It seems to me that our best course of action would be chemical disincorporation, dissolving in hydrofluoric acid.

• Walt and Jesse also decide they have to kill Krazy-8. They flip a coin to see who will do it. Jesse wins the toss, chooses to dispose of the body so it falls upon Walt to kill Krazy-8.

• Walt struggles with how to fulfill his part of the agreement. He considers, then rejects smothering their prisoner (they locked him to a post by sticking a bike lock around his neck). Instead he serves the man sandwiches and provides toiletries.

• Walt tells Skyler (after she finds out via Internet that the number of the call that Walt got from Jesse during breakfast was from Jesse) that Jesse is his pot dealer. She berates him verbally - Your brother-in-law is a DEA agent. What is wrong with you? - to which he says, I'd like you to climb down out of my ass.

• Jesse disposes of the body per Walt's instructions but with one exception. He doesn't use a plastic bin. Instead he put the body in his upstairs bathtub. The hydrofluoric acid melts through the ceramic tub and the ceiling in the hallway collapses.

• In the desert, two Native American children kick a ball around. One of them notices something behind a rock. She picks up Walt's gas mask and put it on her head.

The body count attributable to Walter White-Jesse Pinkman Meth Inc. is only one so far. But #2 isn't far away. Walter initially struggles with his conscious. He writes down on a sheet of paper the reasons for killing Krazy-8 on one side and the reasons for sparing his life on the other. When he's done, there's only one reason on the killing Krazy-8 side: if he doesn't kill their prisoner and lets him go free, he may come back to kill Walter's family and Walter himself.

There is a third option that Walter doesn't consider: turn Krazy-8 into the police/DEA. The reason he doesn't think about it is that would mean brother-in-law Hank, Marie, Skyler and Walter Junior would learn that he sold meth to two drug dealers, then killed one of them and kidnapped the other one. That would cause much shame and embarrassment. His reputation would take a significant hit. But if he'd taken the step, he would have saved himself a truck load of misery. But it's his pride, the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins, that paints him into a corner. His ego-generated pride eliminates the wisest option.

I felt that way when Amy and I were in the midst of our alcoholism. I didn't want seek help for my drinking problem because I was ashamed of my abusing alcohol so much for so long. I thought if I kept it a secret I could protect my reputation. But seeking the help of others isn't a sign of weakness but an indication of strength and wisdom. In my first book, I trace the root cause of the Seven Deadly Sins to an overly strong ego, which I define as the voice inside your head telling you that you are fundamentally different and separate from everyone else. Conversely, I show how realizing and experiencing the truth of unity leads to the Seven Virtues. The choice is yours, do you see yourself