Someone wrote me with a question about dealing with a difficult person. There were other things to say, but it spawned this (enjoy):

It is always important to me to remember that people make decisions that they feel to be for the best, though they are often incredibly damaging and destructive-for themselves, their family, the whole world. It is confusion, misunderstanding, and most importantly suffering that lead to detrimental choices. And if one thing is certain, detrimental choices reproduce themselves, snowballing into ever troubling decisions that can make life hell. But behind every pernicious act is a person who is desperately trying to do what they think (mistakenly) is right. I've often cited Anakin as the prime example of this. Being overcome with the belief that his wife will die unless he does something drastic, Anakin chooses a path of evil, killing friends and the innocent. He knows his actions are wrong, tears stream down his eyes in the afterglow of his deadly sprees, he cries out even as he strikes down dignitaries, but he keeps going because the belief is stronger then his conscience and the momentum of evil is too powerful to resist. The snowball is too big and too fast to stop.

I'm Italian and I have this weird fascination with The Godfather, especially with Michael Corleone. Michael is a lot like Anakin; a well-meaning young man who gets caught up in despicable behavior in order to do what he believes is best for his family. For Michael family comes first, last and at every point in between. This strong devotion to family was an important value to my ancestors and one I see in myself. I feel that I would do just about anything for my family. And I don't simply mean protect them from harm. I would do anything for their happiness. And what if their happiness is a new car or a better school? Would I take on another job? Would I work myself silly for their benefit? Would I do things less than ethical because I am desperate to provide and at my wits end to do so? Would I turn to crime, steal, perhaps kill for them?

Of course, this calls into question what is real happiness and what is truly beneficial for my family and myself. But if you are in this society, society's values are a part of you. Money, individualized, self-defining material, land and title, ivory tower education-that's what's valued and it's not reasonable to think you can just throw those values aside because you see the hollowness of them. They are part of all of us because we are part of society. (We don't have to be ruled by them, but if we treat them glibly we will be).

I relate to Michael Corleone and Anakin because I recognize the desire to do anything for my loved ones. This desire can lead to blind compulsion where the line between a law-abiding, easy-going individual and a man who throws morality into the toilet and finds himself justifying murder is easily crossed with few short steps. Perhaps I'm being dramatic, but if it's possible for Timothy McVeigh to snuff the lives of innocents for his beliefs, it's possible for me to cheat them for mine. If Julius and Ethel Rosenberg could sell the power to destroy entire cities, I could sell my honor to get the kiddies into Waldorf for a few years. If it's possible for President Bush, in pursuit of defending his country, to initiate a war based on incomplete and faulty information, it's possible for me to commit atrocities for the ostensible protection of my family. If its possible for them, it's possible me-we are all, after all, human.

And that's my point: remembering that we are all human, no matter how stupidly or vilely we have behaved, we are still human, frail, fleeting, but also of infinite value. We each have the potential to kill, but we also have the potential to save. We can save in small, but important ways everyday. Grand heroics are not needed-just opening the door for a stranger is enough. Giving up your chair to an elderly person, saying thank you, not taking more food then you need. And looking upon everyone-kind or cruel, calm or spastic-as a person of value.

This is my aspiration: To never disparage or underestimate anyone, to remember that everyone has saintly potential. I don't wish to excuse cruelty and nefariousness, but I don't want to be blinded by their harsh glare either. It is important to see them, yes, but it is vital to see beyond them too. Luke did this for his father. I aspire to do it for everyone.