What Gundam Wing Taught Me About Letting Go transcript

In my personal life, I realized I was living in endless walts. Except mine was struggle, success, and self-sabotage. I would struggle until I was successful. And once I was successful, [music] I would self-sabotage in order to get back into the struggle. What up, world? It's Richie Branson, and we're back in a mobile suit with more of what I like to call an Motivation. Today, we're going to be talking about one of the biggest [music] lessons I learned in my life while watching Gundam Wing Endless Walts.

If you remember the story of Endless Walts, they've got peace. Everything [music] is peaceful. was super kumbaya, everybody happy, and then all of a sudden a new faction arises that tries to take over the world. And Endless Walts has so many dope moments like when the Togis pulls back up, Wing Zero with the buster rifle. Like there's so many really cool moments. In my humble [music] opinion, my humblest of humble opinions, I think that the coolest moment of Endless Walts actually happens towards the beginning when you find the Mobile Suit pilots sending their Gundams into the sun to destroy them.

[music] And so in my younger years when I watched Endless Walts, I used to say to myself, if I had the Death Scythe, Batman himself couldn't [music] beat me into sending the Death Scythe into the sun to be destroyed. I would keep that thing in the garage until the day I died. I would hand it down to my son, teach him how to pilot it, and the Death Scythe would be a family heirloom. But as I've grown older and wiser, I realized that the strongest thing those Gundam pilots could have done was destroy their Gundams.

And it's crazy to say that because those machines are responsible for saving humanity, saving the world, preventing [music] catastrophe. Those machines gave their pilots power, purpose, and identity. But that's the exact reason why they [music] had to go. At the very root of it, the Gundams are weapons of war. They're weapons that are used during conflict. When we're in the middle of conflict, [music] that's when we have to be at our most savvy, our most powerful, our most cunning.

And so, when you think about the tools that we use [music] to survive inner conflict, right? or survive like what we're going through. That could take the form of hyperindependence, emotional detachment, always [music] having to look over your shoulder, being hypervigilant, not really being able to trust anybody. That's that's probably the biggest one for me is I don't trust nobody [music] when I'm going through it. We have a lot of defense weapons that we utilize when we're trying to fight our battles.

And so, when you think about the significance of these pilots sending their guns off to [music] destruction, one, it signifies that the conflict is over. there's no longer a need for them to be in possession of these weapons of war because there's no more war. You don't really need weapons of that caliber. If you if you truly have peace, you really don't need to be walking around with a Gundam. I think the biggest one though is the Gundams aren't just machines to them.

They're not just machines to these people. And if you watch Gundam Wing, you'll notice the attachment that they have to their [music] Gundam. Duo Maxwell in particular is always talking to Death Scythe like, "It's okay, buddy. I'll see you later, buddy." And so when peace was finally achieved, the pilots realized that their connection with these Gundams, these weapons of war [music] had become a part of their identity.

And in order to truly accept and adapt to the piece that they had created, they could no longer have the Gundams as a major part of what made them who [music] they were. The Gundams couldn't be a part of their identity anymore. They actually weren't getting [music] rid of the Gundams to become weaker. They were actually getting rid of the Gundams to become stronger in the peace they had created. It's one thing to be strong in war.

It's another thing to be strong at peace. In Endless Walts, you see most of the pilots decide to get rid of their war machines [music] with Wuay being one of the exceptions and Wu sort of presents the counterargument to the idea that you have to adopt peace in order to truly be in [music] peace. And one of the heaviest things he said to this point was while he was dueling with Hero, he said something like, "We can only acknowledge our existence [music] on the battlefield." And that speaks volumes.

And I felt that to my core because for me, I've struggled [music] with a lot of battles. As you see, I am a depression veteran. And I felt like there have been so many times [music] where I would reach the peace that I was fighting for. And I would look back at the version that I was during [music] the war and I would miss that version of me. I would miss the cunning version of me, that cold, heartless version of me that really had to [music] lock in in order to get past whatever I was fighting against.

And I'd end up missing that version of me so much that I would end up sabotaging my peace so that I could get back in that mobile suit, engaging in the most heinous [music] forms of self-sabotage just to put myself back on the battlefield because who I was on the battlefield was the only person I knew how to be. And even to this day, I still find myself [music] having trouble adapting to the peace I created for myself.

And I'll never forget when my brother Mav told me, he said, "You are an amazing person when you're solving a problem." And I think that's why you always give yourself problems to solve. A lot of the habits that we adopt while we're [music] in the middle of the battle, they serve a very functional tactical purpose. And while they're definitely tactical during that wartime, they become toxic when we're in our peaceful state.

You have to learn how to turn it off. You have to learn how to destroy your Gundam. And so the duel between Wu and Hero actually served more than just two mobile [music] suits going at it. It was more about which version of strength was necessary. two competing ideas of what strength truly is. Wu's position was that it's the struggle that makes us strong. It's the struggle that defines us as warriors. [music] Whereas Hero's position is that true strength makes the struggle unnecessary.

You don't have to struggle when you're strong. You're actually strong when you know how to exist outside of the [music] struggle. And so you may be thinking, well, if all of that is true, why do they go get the Gundams back when the war breaks out? Just because you have achieved peace and you could take your armor off for a moment, you could leave the mobile suit for a [music] moment, it doesn't mean that you'll never have to get back in that mobile suit later.

So the real strength [music] isn't improving that you're ready for war all the time. It's building the world in which war is no longer [music] required. Healing is not a guarantee. It's not a promise that you'll never end up in the war again. [music] And sometimes you'll find yourself in a position where you got to get back in that mode. And so the real difference lies in whether or not you're controlling the mobile [music] suit or whether you're letting the mobile suit control you.

Are you letting who you are in battle define who you are [music] outside of it? And so the reason they go to get the Gundams back, it's not because they enjoy war and they want to be warriors and they're really good mecha pilots. It's strictly in service of the peace that they had created for [music] themselves. And I feel like sometimes I'll put myself back in that zone not to serve my peace, but rather to enjoy the war, you know, enjoying the war.

[music] I feel like in order to sort of get a handle and identify whether or not you're letting [music] your struggle identity define you, you have to name your Gundam. You got to name your mobile suit. What is that thing that you do when you're in survival mode that has no place in who you are now? Is it perfectionism? Is it isolation? Is it mistrust for everybody? Name that. Give it a name. Then you got to look at what the conflict was.

You know, every war has a name. [music] You look at all the conflicts in Gundam and even outside of Gundam in real life, every war has a name. What is the war that you had to fight to turn [music] you into the person that you were? What was the war that required the Gundam to be used? What was it? Then you got to scan the battlefield. You got to look and survey whether or not the threat is truly gone. Do you still need your Gundam?

Do you still need to be that person? You can't respond to your current living situation with an old [music] survival strategy. That that just don't work. And so, you remember we were talking about the tall geese and sort of the idea was that in order [music] to grow, sometimes you have to hop into a machine that demands more of you. But then there's another level of growth that requires [music] you to recognize when that machine is no longer needed.

Maximum capability does [music] not mean you have to live a life at maximum alert. You can keep the strength. You don't have to keep the war. You can keep the strength. Nobody's saying that you got to be weak, but you don't have to keep the war. If anybody needs to hear this, it's me. Because I feel like the hardest weapons that I've ever had to release are those that are a part of my identity. I [music] identify so much with who I am when I'm struggling that a lot of those characteristics, it's hard for me to let them go.

And so every day I work a little bit towards getting rid of [music] some of those weapons, laying some of those arms down, sending some of those Gundams off to the sun so that I can actually enjoy peace. So there was another pilot who couldn't put his weapon down, and that's my dog, Zex. Zex is my [music] dog, man. That's Yo, me and Zex. Yeah, we get it. Zex's motivations were a little bit different. I think more so he just sort of felt like there would always be a threat and he wanted to be alert for it.

And I mean, if y'all already didn't know, my favorite mobile suit from Endless Walls was definitely the Toggies 3. Zex's refusal to get rid of his weapon resulted in some of the coolest moments in Endless Walls. I mean, he said one of the greatest quotes from the entire movie. He said, "There is [music] still a place for a man who can't get used to peace." And I feel like he was speaking to me cuz I am a man who can't get used to peace.

And in the same way that I really enjoyed [music] watching the Ties 3 come back and do its thing, I feel like I have that same [music] level of romanticization for the moments that I have in my own conflicts. And that might explain why I always go back to them. I'm really good when it comes to fighting for my peace. I am so great [music] at fighting for peace, but I am terrible at living in peace. It's almost like I find happiness when I have to operate in situations of conflict [music] and I have to be absolutely perfect.

And so one of the biggest lessons I've taken from Endless Walls is that if you move through peace with anticipation of war, the war is going to find you. The war will find you. It's crazy to think that something could save your life in one season and actually stop you from living your life in the next. And so I say all that to say, we got to make sure that we're just watching Enlist Waltz and not [music] living it. I really hope y'all enjoyed that perspective.

It's just one more step on the way to becoming a real life mobile suit pilot. I'm Richie Branson and this is Anna Motivation.