User blog comment:Mikami Teru/Musings of a Fan/@comment-4358023-20120121060927/@comment-4229500-20120121065619

Well as intelligent as Light was, he was still a kid, something L made note of. Even as he progressed into adulthood, the thought of improving society through mass murder had already become ingrained into his thought process. The mind of 17-year-old can be rather vulnerable.

Light’s warped thinking did have some rationale though- he really didn’t want to kill any innocents. He hesitated for quite some time before he actually went through wanting to kill the task force because they were such a low threat to him. It was only after they suspected him because of Near that he began to feel that it was necessary to kill them. In Light’s eyes, anyone who had a good chance of exposing him as Kira would need to be killed otherwise he would be unable to go about changing the world. Of course, this meant that Light could go as far as kill his own family. Now, if my new world put my very family in danger, then I would reconsider what I was doing, but for someone as twisted as Light was, something like that was beyond his line of thought.

No, I don’t agree with everything Light did, but in the big-picture way of looking at things, the world was still slightly better with Kira calling the shots. That said, improving the state of the world is something I really want to do, but I need to bide my time and prepare. In my youth, I used to do a lot of community service and it did feel great. However, now that I look back, I see that a lot of what I did only provided temporary solutions to the people I helped. What is really needed is for one to strike the root of the problem, which can be done by changing the system. I realize in order to do so, I need the right career but it is certainly no career one can acquire with just a high school diploma.

Unlike Light or Mikami, I do believe that almost every able-thinking person has room for redemption, no matter what bad deed they have committed. However, I do think people should use their talents to give back to the world. Some people with gifts and ability, for instance, can make a lot of money in this capitalist-age society and I feel it is these people who should contribute their wealth to humanitarian efforts.

Nevertheless, you are right when you say that you can’t force someone to do something. That is why I hope to adopt a profession that merely inspires others to take up endeavors similar to mine. It is something that requires the art of persuasion and certainly not the use of a killer notebook.