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Dr Zach Bush MD - Why We Shouldn't Aim For A New Normal | Modern Wisdom Podcast 286

Dr Zach Bush MD is a physician and educator specialising in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. The last 12 months have been a challenge. Everyone has come up against difficulties and can't wait to get back to some sense of normality, but by aiming for normal, are we missing out on an opportunity to become something better? Expect to learn how to deal with a loss of meaning and identity during global crises, why unity and conformity are not the same thing, how losing diversity in the global microbiome is related to our immune system and much more... Sponsors: Get 5% off products over £299 from AO - including sale items at https://ao.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERN5) *Get 5% off products over £299 at ao.com excluding Gaming and Phones. Use Code: MODERN5. Discount code valid from 22/02/2021 and to be used before midnight on 22/03/2021. One discount code per qualifying transaction. Discount code cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or cashback promotion, including AO Price Match Promise. AO reserves the right to vary or terminate the offer at any time. Offer has no cash value and cannot be used in stores. Subject to availability. Visit ao.com for full T&Cs here and Promotions Explained here. Extra Stuff: Check out Zach's website - https://zachbushmd.com/ Follow Zach on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/zachbushmd/ Check out Ion Biome - https://ionbiome.com/ Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #zachbush #biohacking #purpose - 00:00 Intro 00:19 Zach’s Biggest Lessons from 2020 06:00 Growing from Difficult Experiences 14:50 How to Move Forward as a Civilisation 23:16 Why is Earth So Chaotic? 37:25 Will Humanity Survive the Next Century? 47:57 How to Stay Mentally Strong 51:19 What is the Future of Health? 55:00 Science & Spirituality 57:25 Where to Find Zach - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Dr. Zach BushguestChris Williamsonhost
Feb 21, 20211h 0mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Dr. Zach Bush: Rejecting ‘New Normal’ For Radical Human Reimagining

  1. Dr. Zach Bush and Chris Williamson use 2020 as a lens to explore trauma, growth, and the dangers of returning to a comforting but destructive ‘normal.’
  2. Bush argues that intense loss and disruption can trigger heightened consciousness and opportunity, if we resist numbing ourselves and instead pause to feel and reorient.
  3. They critique current civilization: political polarization, environmental collapse, COVID, genetic engineering, and AGI are framed as symptoms of deeper philosophical and biological disconnection from nature.
  4. Bush calls for a shift from ethics to integrity, and from conformity to true unity, grounded in microbiome health, regenerative agriculture, decentralization, and daily practices of stillness and self-reinvention.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use crisis and loss as forced course‑corrections, not just tragedies.

Bush reframes job loss, divorce, and 2020’s upheaval as painful but clarifying free‑fall moments that strip away false identities and open doors to more authentic paths if we stop clinging to the old ledge.

Create daily pauses of stillness to realign with a deeper ‘flow.’

He recommends cultivating a deliberate pause—mental and physical—to quiet the mind, feel fully, and sense subtle directions from a larger current of life, then adjusting relationships, work, and habits accordingly.

Prioritize integrity over ethics, and unity over conformity.

Ethics and conformity depend on narrow, programmable perspectives and easily justify control; integrity and true unity, by contrast, imply internal coherence, respect for difference, and creativity that scales across systems.

Recognize social and political chaos as symptoms of biological collapse.

Bush links rising polarization, aggression, and unrest to environmental degradation, microbiome loss, and chronic inflammation, arguing that our war on microbes produces both physical disease and inflamed collective behavior.

Be critically aware of the shift toward direct genetic modification.

He views mRNA COVID vaccines as a historic step in human self‑engineering—an attempt to separate from nature—which may trigger cascading ‘gene‑of‑the‑year’ interventions and a deepening arms race if not philosophically reevaluated.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Every opportunity we have to dull the experience of being alive, we do.

— Dr. Zach Bush

The worst possible outcome of 2021 would be that we go back to some sort of previous normal.

— Dr. Zach Bush

Unity allows for the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts. Conformity dissolves the potential for creativity, co‑creation, and a future of hope.

— Dr. Zach Bush

What if you let your partner be somebody completely new in the next millisecond, and what if they let you be somebody new?

— Dr. Zach Bush

You can go through your entire life within the middle interquartile range of experience… and feeling alive—what else are we really here for?

— Chris Williamson

Meaning and growth derived from collective trauma and personal lossComfort versus ‘living on the edge’ and post‑traumatic growthEthics vs. integrity, and unity vs. conformity as core philosophiesGlobal chaos, environmental collapse, microbiome loss, and human behaviorCOVID vaccines as genetic modification and civilizational hubrisExistential risks (pandemics, AGI) and the possibility of ‘existential corrections’Practical spiritual/mental practices, regenerative health, and decentralized futures

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