Wanzology

Michael Wansley [00:00:00]:

“Keep putting faith in front and believe the best is yet to come, you'll see. Nothing in this life comes completely free. But, every once in a while, you just get lucky.”

Welcome to another episode of Wanzology of podcast designed to help all of us get through life, focusing more on the similarities between us than the differences. Proposing new perspectives to help guide you through the most dangerous place on the planet. That's six inches between your ears. Yes, yourself.

Michael Wansley [00:00:48]:

Six inches in eternity. Nah. How you doing? The Wanz here. Welcome to another episode of Wanzology. And I think in this particular episode, it bears, how you say, description, what this is all about. Why is this why is Wandzology supposed to be the absolute end all be all thing? Well, I don't know about if it's the end all be all, but I do know the idea for this podcast came from years of people suggesting,
“Hey, Wanz.”

“Yeah?”

“Why aren't you doing a podcast?”

“Well, everybody does a podcast.”

“Yeah, but your podcast would be cool.”

Michael Wansley [00:01:53]:

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, man. You ever listen to yourself talk?”

“Well, I try not to.”

Well, that explains some things. No, it's taken the loss of a job and really having no other way no way out, no other way out of 2023. 2023 has, without a doubt, been not one of the above average years of my life. When you lose your job, you get laid off the third day of the year, spend five months trying to learn a skill, only to find out that the skill you've busted things to do, you don't have enough experience at and that you can't manufacture experience. Whom. So about midway through the summer, I'm trying to figure out…

“Well, let's see, I have unemployment.”

Michael Wansley [00:03:16]:

“That's great.”

“How much do I have left?”

“Oh! Well then!! I better get off the shee-nied and figure out what I'm going to do. Okay. Maybe I could do music. Ya see, I was at one time this star, sort of anyway, that was so 2012, 2013, when “I'm going to pop some tags. Only got $20 in my pocket”, was raining down like monsoon season in India, man. Couldn't go anywhere without hearing that song. But I was having a great time.

Michael Wansley [00:04:04]:

I was living the dream that I'd had since I was a kid. I mean, I used to just think about what it would be like to walk out on stage and people that roar and start singing and people I could stick the mic out and people would start singing, and I didn't have to sing because they knew all the words and all that other stuff. Interviews and award shows and being on television. I used to dream about all that stuff, man, for a long time. And I'm really glad it happened. I'm really glad it happened. Not because it was like some kind of big ego stroking, blah, blah, blah. No, I'm glad it happened because I learned a valuable lesson.

Michael Wansley [00:04:58]:

I learned a valuable lesson that took decades, decades to come to fruition. And it's oddly summed up in a catchphrase from the movie Galaxy Quest. If you haven't seen it, that's Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver and a host of other people in this spoof on. Basically, it looks like a spoof on. You know, you have the space captain of the ship and has this crew around him and blah, blah, blah. Right? But the catchphrase from that movie was never give up, never surrender. And man, when I go from the then from the can honestly say, “NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!” was my mantra. I just didn't know it yet.

Michael Wansley [00:06:02]:

I didn't know it yet. So, what does that have to do with this podcast, you ask? Well, for starters, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you have made it a certain distance in your existence, ya dig? You have made it a certain amount of time through the time that you're going to be here. And keep in mind, time is the most valuable thing any of us have because number one, you can't replace it. And number two, nobody knows how much time they've got. Just go watch Final Destination (the movie). There's like five of them. Yeah. So this whole concept of Wanzology is based around the story that kept me going.

Michael Wansley [00:07:02]:

And when I say kept me going, I mean, it drove me. It drove me for decades. What later became never give up, never surrender was it was just, well, you know what? That didn't work. Let's try something else. That didn't work. Let's try something else for like 30 years. Yeah. This is what happens when you just wing it, but you make it up as you go because there was no guide.

Michael Wansley [00:07:39]:

Right. And life, I've found I've recently started studying in my own little way. Life is extremely circumstantial. Whatever circumstance you're in is unique for you. Other people have been through that circumstance, maybe, but you don't care about that because you're in it, right? It's happening to you. I mean, it's one thing to watch somebody else open the wrong can of beer or soda and it sprays all over. But when it happens to you, oh, yeah, it's different. Totally different.

Michael Wansley [00:08:20]:

Your circumstances could never be like anybody else's. And one of the things that I learned while I was on tour is, there really isn't very much advantage to being extremely unique. In fact, it's a detriment. The more unique you are, I can pretty much safely say, from my experience, the worse your life is because you either miss out on things that might change your perspective or you don't develop enough curiosity to even care. You're just satisfied. And that's fine. Everybody doesn't have to do everything. Wanzology is me telling people how I made it through to become a unique character.

Michael Wansley [00:09:27]:

Unique character in the sense that it doesn't happen every day. That a 51 year old gets onto a hit song and lives out a dream he's had all his life or her life or their life, it doesn't happen. I mean, I'm still looking to find another example, but it's what I learned from not giving up all those years ago for not settling for well, I'll just beat my brains out and become a computer programmer and not play in bands and yeah, it's really nice that my friends and Alice and Chains are out there doing it. And my friends in Pearl Jam are out there doing it. Yeah, I remember when we used to hang, Buddy. No, I wanted it for myself! I ain't going to lie. I wanted people to want me!

Michael Wansley [00:10:24]:

Like that old song, “I want you to want me. I need you to need me.” Man, there would be nothing like it. And everyone has a goal in mind in their own life. It doesn't have to be to be a performer or entertainer. I mean, people want to be successful so that they can find true love and have kids and raise family and do all the things that their parents did, thinking that they're going to do it better than their parents did, which is ironic because there's no rulebook, there's no guidance. How do you know you're going to be better than your parents? You're just not going to do what they did to you, to your kids. Which kills me, because you end up doing exactly what they did because they didn't want to be like their parents.

Michael Wansley [00:11:27]:

Weird things like that are where Wanzology germinates. There's a reason for a lot of things. Everything you can possibly think of comes from something. All music comes from other music. People come from other people; time? Well, that's a human construct of so that we can exist. We can get some reference points of how to exist because we understand the past. We call it that because we remember what happened.

Michael Wansley [00:12:09]:

And we do things in the present because that's what's happening. And then the future, which is the really fun part. Well, that's what we think is going to happen or what we want to happen. And if it doesn't happen that way, well, human nature has ways of explaining all those things. Wanzology is nothing more than my explanation for those things. The little six inches between your ears is a playground of imagination, degradation, exhalation. Lots of Asians, lots of Asians, lots of things happening in there all the time. And it could be the happiest place on Earth, happier than Disney World or Disneyland.

Michael Wansley [00:13:02]:

It could be softer than the softest pillow, and it could be harder than the hardest pavement. We are complex creatures trying to live simply, and it's simply complicated.

That's what Wanzology is all about. How to get simple in a complicated way, and how complications can make things simple. Are you ready? I know I am. Next time we're going to be digging into something called “#TheBookofWanz” Wanzology!

Later. Hey, thanks for being here today.

Michael Wansley [00:13:59]:

I want you to go to your social media and look for W-A-N-Z ology Wanzology Wanzology! You can catch me and my music in my store on thewanz dot com. Byeeee.

“You just get lucky.”

Do something good for yourself, then go do it for somebody else. I'll see you. Bye.