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

1. 0:00 – 0:19

   Intro

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:00

      If we rephilosophize where we are, and what does human integrity rather than human ethic look like, what does human unity rather than human conformity look like, if we start stepping through that philosophy, the behaviors that we see filling up the headlines simply disappear. (airplane whooshing)

2. 0:19 – 6:00

   Zach’s Biggest Lessons from 2020

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:19

   2. CWChris Williamson0:19

      What is the biggest lesson that you took from 2020?

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:24

      Wow. You know, I think y- it's hard to dissect them all out, but I think if I were to, you know, take a reductionist approach to that, um, I'm, I'm ultimately just glad to be alive at this moment. Uh, what a privilege to have witnessed 2020. Uh, it, it's, it's n- difficult to overstate the tipping point situations that are so multifaceted; tipping point of human health, tipping point of socioeconomics, tipping point of sociology and psychology o- of, of populations, and that just is extraordinary space to be in. So, uh, I- I am walking away with a new sense of gratitude to the moment that I showed up in. And so, that's, I think, a way of looking, uh, positively at a, at a year in which so many people lost so much and so many people gained so much. And, uh, in that, uh, dichotomy, uh, what a privilege to be alive, what a privilege to be witness to it all.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:22

      That's a really interesting take on it and one that I actually quite appreciate. (clears throat) I, I wonder whether there is a ... whether there is an advantage to living through history. Um, you know, like it is ... it was uncomfortable, you know. Like I, I preferred 2019 in terms of an experiential, uh, adventurous world than 2020. But, you know, if you look at between sort of in the '60s, there have been people that have born and died and had a good amount of life without actually living through a massive amount of history, you know. Um, I wonder whether that's part of something that can add meaning to life, going through something which is a global trauma, species-wide, civilizational threat. I wonder whether that's something that can add meaning and is actually worthwhile living through, whether it is, as you say, a, a blessing almost to, to have endured it.

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush2:17

      I think it is a blessing. I think if we look at the generations that have not witnessed war or not had to be a part of war, there's a lethargy that sets in in that generation, and there's a laziness. Uh, there's, uh, there's a tendency to take things for granted, uh, in that, that, uh, group. And I think that my grandfather's generation really struggled with, uh, the younger generations who had not, uh, seen global co- conflict on that scale before with the flippancy that we would talk about politics or we would talk about civil liberties. Um, eh, you know, people who lived through the initial civil rights movement, uh, and watching how flippantly we've given away those civil liberties and civil rights in recent months and years, uh, I, I think there's a real discouragement, uh, there. And so when we find ourselves as a, a new generation that's in, in the mix of massive, you know, catastrophic events or, you know, conflict, uh, whether it be socioeconomic or military or otherwise, uh, we do have to be cognizant that we are brushing against the very thing that it means to be aware. And so, uh, to be aware is to be, uh, threatened in some ways. Unfortunately, the neural network of the human brain, uh, is easily distracted and is easily, uh, tempted into the, the, uh, the softness of comfort, uh, when we're not in a fight-or-flight state. And in that comfort state, we tend to dull our senses. Uh, we can see this in the way that we celebrate, right? We can, we ... or in the way which we s- you know, we deal with bad things. You know, you, you get fired from your job, you go to the bar and you drink with your friends to dull your- dull the pain. You get the big promotion, you go to the b- same bar, you drink-

   6. CWChris Williamson4:00

      (laughs)

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush4:00

      ... with your friends and dull the experience. It's just like, what the hell are we doing as humans? Like, every opportunity we have to dull the experience of being alive, we do. And so, uh, there's something that happens in a year like we just had where, where life can become raw. And if you found yourself this year in one of those experiences where you just were stripped of everything you thought you had, lost your job, lost your home, that life has turned into a, a prickly pear of experience and you're just ... it's painful to take a step sideways, it's important for you to realize at that moment, you are the most conscious you have ever been. You are, in some ways, having the most real experience you've ever had. And if for a moment you can, instead of trying to dull that down with the alcohol or the Netflix or whatever you're distracting yourself with, come into that moment and say, "Man, this pain is really profound, and it's real, and I'm real, and I must be real for the experience of sensory, sen- the sensory experience of feeling all of this." Then you can have ... st- start to work from that space. If I can feel this much, what would I like to do to transmute that pain into an opportunity? What would I like to do to transition my perspective of, "There's so many barriers," to, "There's an open door behind me, and I could turn around and go that direction"? And so those are the things that I think if we started that into t- the public narrative instead of saying, "Ah, man, so sorry you lost your job" of "Dude, you lost your job. You've hated that thing. Why ... y- you told me last year you hated your job, it was killing you. Congratulations, you lost your fricking job. What's the next opportunity? What do you want to transmute? What do you want to do next?" You know, if that was the attitude to loss, uh, that we immediately saw a gain, uh, of gain of function, if you will, in this whole viromic talk, the, the gain of function comes from loss and transition comes from challenge or friction. Uh, so there's a real excitement, that you're spot on, that it, we should celebrate years like 2020. Not only is it history, maybe it's human.

3. 6:00 – 14:50

   Growing from Difficult Experiences

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush6:00

   2. CWChris Williamson6:00

      Dude, uh, that strikes a chord with something I've been thinking about for a long time, uh, called living with the edge.So very much life can be lived from the comfort of your couch. And edges are a scary place to be. You know, there's a precipice below you, you're terrified that you're going to fall off. But there's a reason the edges are there. They're there to remind you that this is how far you can go and you came back and you were fine. Um, and obviously there's some very deeply ingrained issues with regards to trying to get people, especially in a group, to be okay with comfort, because naturally, we want to shy away from the things that make us feel bad. And even with things that make us feel too good, we often talk about trying to keep a level head and remain... But, uh, dude, I totally, totally agree. You can go through your entire life within the middle interquartile range of experience, never going up towards the absolute joy and never going down toward the complete sort of existential loss, and feeling alive. Like, what else are we really here for? Like, what's the purpose of us being on the planet? Is it, is it just to bounce between moderately okay to not so bad, like for (laughs) -

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush7:13

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson7:13

      ... 80 years? Um, yeah, and s- the statistics around post-traumatic growth, which I'm sure that you'll have seen as well, it's like two thirds of people that go through a trauma come out and say that it was one of the most significant parts of their life. I know it has been for me. The mild traumas that I have been through have been the things that have made me the person that I am today. They were the orthogonal turn that adjusted my life direction in an unambiguously more virtuous, better, more integrity filled way.

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush7:48

      Perfectly said. Perfectly said, and I think that, uh, that, uh, loss is a great example of those events that, uh, re- ... demand shift, and what a relief. Uh, and so, you know, when I lost my job at the university because of, you know, collapse of funding at the national level, at the n- the NIH had lost funding thr- because of the big recession, 2008 to t- uh, 2010, suddenly our university that had been funded since 1969 loses its funding, and, you know, on the human brain level, I was devastated. It's like, I just spent $200,000 of school debt and 17 years in academia to be part of this university, to march into the future, to be the chair of the m- chair of medicine someday, or whatever, you know, BS I wanted for myself and all of this. And so when I was losing that, there was a sense of like, "My God, h- how much did I invest and how much am I losing?" And all this. And yet if I had not had that experience, I would have stayed in the depressed state that I was in. I was depressed working at the University of Virginia as a chemothera- chemotherapy developer, and yet I felt the n- this huge sense of loss when I lost the very thing that was killing me, the very thing that was keeping me in an isolated state and away from my own purpose. And so the loss of that job, you know, was so beautiful, you know, in retrospect of, man, it opened me up and when, when you have loss, I think, uh, there's a tendency for us to try to cling on to the ledge that we just stepped off of, and we kind of, you know, inch ourselves along that ledge with our fingertips until we ki- find some new safe little platform to stand on. What happened to me, and it was not voluntary, 'cause I was in full terror, I was in full fight or flight state, losing that job, losing, you know, my faith in academia as a whole, realizing I was gonna have to go into the private sector, all of those things, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have let go of the ledge. But every time I tried to hold onto the ledge, the universe was literally t- bring a mallet down on my fingertips and, and make me fall, and then I would catch a new, new edge and it would hit me again. I, I j- went through a series of events between February of, of 2010 to about June of 2010 where every single door in my life slammed shut, and I lost so much of what I had ha- had been building for 20 years previously. And what it forced was a free fall event, and the free fall was economic, it was social, it was professional. Like on every level, I lost my friends, I lost my colleagues, I lost my funding, I lost money, I lost, you know, nearly everything. And over the next few years, you know, my life would, would continue to push those buttons. I would lose my marriage, I would lose all kinds of things that I had built my identity around and I thought my character was based upon, and the idea that I would lose my marriage was just, like, catastrophic compared to losing my job. Like, this was, this was my spiritual character now being taken away from me. And so, uh, what I went through in those four or five years was, uh, a continuous free fall experience of, "I have no grounding left. I have no anchor thrown in anything left." Uh, they, every anchor chain I've thrown out there has been cut by the universe, and while I wouldn't necessarily wish that on everybody, or anybody, I hope everybody h- gets that experience, because what it does is, is finally force you into that existential experience of asking, "Who are you when you're attached to nothing? Who are you when you've lost all sense of roles and sense of responsibility?" And you are just wondering what's gonna happen next. You're w- you're waiting for the, the crashing death, n- you know, on the bottom of the chasm that you're falling into, and y- and then suddenly, for inexplicable r- reasons, you start to feel like your, your descent is slowing, and you're still falling through space that you've never been in. You've, you're still falling in an environment that you've never witnessed. You have no anchors, but your descent or your speed of change is slowing, and then suddenly, without hitting anything, you come to a standstill, and that's the moment that I hope everybody got to in 2020. At some point in 2020, the world made you stand still, and maybe made your kids stand still, they're finally not running around to 10,000 soccer things and running around to all of these other things. Football, sorry. Uh, you know, th- going from th- from moment to moment to moment-... they all finally stood still, and I hope as humanity, we take advantage of what happened in 2020 and what's already unfolding in the beginning of 2021, which is, we can't really step forward yet, because we don't know what the future that we want looks like, and we're terrified of the future that's unfolding a- against our will. And we don't know how to fight it yet. And so, we are in a moment of pause, and I think we need to, to celebrate that pause, and we need to ask each other, "What are you feeling right now when we, when you can't move, when you're paralyzed? You don't have the job. You don't have the money. You can't travel. You can't get on that airplane. You can't go to the restaurant. You can't do anything you would have done a year ago. In that pause, what are you feeling right now? What is coming to your mind as a potential opportunity or a fear that you face? What's, what's coming to you?" Because it's in that slowing of the descent where you realize you are no longer gonna hit some pre- preconceived bottom of the, of the, of the chasm. You're about to, to find flow, and you're, you're stepping into the current of flow of the universe now instead of preconceived realities that you were living within. And so when you feel that descent slowing, you find yourself silent, in some ways, that's when you panic the most, because n- now you're not even moving. And what if you got paralyzed right here? What if you stopped moving, and nothing was real, and you had no job, and you had nothing, ever? And so as you feel the slowing happen, there's th- I think that's where we see suicide happening the most. Uh, I think that's where it, you know, we f- see the deepest depression. But if we can see the 30,000-foot view, that slowing moment is about to be where we just stop swimming up the stream. We stop fighting the current. We let go, and we're ready to flow into a future that we haven't seen yet. And that's, should be the most hopeful and optimistic moment of our life, and unfortunately, it can often be the opposite because we keep clinging to the previous world, the previous reality. So I encourage each of you, if you feel frozen right now, if you feel like you can't move, if you feel paralyzed, it means you have come to a standstill, and if you wait for another couple beats, wait for a couple more breaths, you might feel a little bit of momentum in a new direction that's not directed by you, not directed by your sense of responsibility or your sense of duty. But it's actually the universe starting to take you into a playful moment of, "What would it feel like if you just floated downstream with us instead of continuously fighting the stream, fighting the current?" So that's, that's 2020 in a nutshell, I hope, for the world.

   6. CWChris Williamson14:49

      (clears throat)

4. 14:50 – 23:16

   How to Move Forward as a Civilisation

   1. CWChris Williamson14:50

      I really love that, man. I went to go and see Jordan Peterson live, uh, about three years ago, and someone from the crowd asked him a question. And they said, um, "The depth of my consciousness causes me to suffer. Basically, um, it is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply. What can I do about it?" And he said, "You take the thing which poisons you, and you drink enough of it to girdle the world around you. You turn it into a tonic that allows you to fix the problem inside." And that sort of onward, deeper into the breach-type solution, to me, really does feel like the only way that you can, that you can find a solution with this. Another analogy that I've been thinking about a lot, I had a Special Forces, British Special Forces soldier on the show last year, and he taugh- taught me about a break point, which is when they stack up outside of the door before they're about to breach. It's a small period of pause in between two periods of chaos and extreme action. And I wonder whether we've globally had a, a global break point here, where all of the things, the flexing on Instagram. Like no one can flex on Instagram if you've got a mask on. (laughs) You know, you can't, you just can't do it. (laughs) Like, you're stuck in your house. I know you're stuck in your house. You can't show off your car. It's like, you can't drive it anywhere. Um, and I know that you think a lot about our future as a civilization long term. It's something that I've been very, very deep into. I'm concerned that we may have missed a great opportunity to bind together as a civilization, uh, through this pandemic. I'm aware it's not fully over. Um, but we have seen still quite a lot of, uh, people coming head-to-head, groups going up against each other in a way that I would have hoped a species-wide suffering might have helped to dispel. What's your current sentiment on where we're at at the moment and, and where we're going forward as a civilization?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush16:40

      (clears throat) Uh, well, there's, there's a saying out there that there's only two, two true sciences, and o- one is physics and one is philosophy. But since physics was based on philosophy, there's only really one true science, and that's philosophy. And, uh, I think where we're at at the moment is the need to redefine our philosophical sense of reality, and this comes around, you know, some very important terms that are being utilized, I think, to, uh, in some ways, brainwash us into thinking that we are okay. (laughs) The worst possible outcome of 2021 would be that we go back to some sort of previous normal, which is exactly what my country just did. We just put into power a (laughs) president that was here eight years, you know, pre- you know, uh, for eight years already, 12 years back. And so we literally were so craving some sort of security, we were willing to go backwards to a previous normal that took us to the point where we had everything unfold. We had a Donald Trump because we had those eight years of, of this, this kind of mindset in, in politics. We had the, you know, collapse of the EPA and the collapse of everything that everybody hated Trump for. The setup w- for that was the eight years of the president and vice president that we just h- hired back in. So, I, I'm dumbfounded by the fact that we can be so shortsighted and so scared that the only thing we can imagine is the past.... that's terrifying to me. If we can only imagine the past as some, you know, s- you know, some sort of improvement to our future, uh, we've lost the game. And so, we're at this interesting tipping point of, are we willing to let go of the past? (laughs) And if we are not, and if we continue, as a globe, to do what the United States just did and put old thinking back into place, then we're going to, a- as you say, miss the opportunity for a new version of community and connection and co-creation, and we're going to step back into the concept of big government is better, you know, w- when we need protection against the scary factions, we need protection against oligarchs or, you know, big personalities, so we need more uniformity. And the philosophies that I think we need to start to look at is, for example, the word ethic. Uh, the concept and philosophy of ethos, or ethic, requires a- a human perspective to even make a judgment call on whatever ethic you hold. Your ethics are ultimately a judgment call that are limited by your own perspective on the reality you live in. And so, if you say this is an ethical behavior, you are looking through a very heavily programmed viewpoint as to what the reality and what the circumstances that event is turning up in, and what the influencer- uh, influential, uh, factors are and all of that. The transition of philosophy from ethic to integrity solves for a new future. The word integrity requires no perspective. Integral or integrity, meaning that there is no conflict within; no matter which direction you look at something, it has integrity. It means that all of its integral parts are aligned and there is no internal conflict within it, is much different than an ethos or an ethic which, almost by its- its existence is saying (laughs) that somebody else disagrees with me. There is no coherence in an ethical field. The field of ethics is one of conflict, is one of debate, whereas an industry or a- a- a being of integrity has no debate, uh, within it. It has no discourse of conflict within it because everything is of i- in its highest truth, in its highest vibration. So, I look forward to imagining a future nation, a future, you know, uh, statement of human rights that's built around integrity rather than ethic, because the ethic allows for too much manipulation by political systems, communities, individuals, and they can be manipulated to socialism or communism or whatever it is. And so, in the same way, we are... You know, let me use just one other example 'cause I know this is running long description here. But where we are right now with e- ethics to integrity could also be looked at through the lens of unity versus conformity. And it's very dangerous that we believe that the manifestation at its highest level of unity is one of conformity. And I believe that that's what the current paradigm is using against us is saying, "How dare you not wear a mask?" Or, "How dare you say that we should have, you know, ethnic differences?" Or whatever it is. We should all be... We're all the same. We should all be the same. When you start to hear unity turn into a message of conformity, you know that you're suffering the same consequence of integrity into ethic, which is you are being manipulated away from your own self-identity. You're being manipulated away from your own truth when conformity replaces unity. The beauty of unity, any union of two people in a marriage or two people in a business development or whatever it is, is that you recognize the difference between the two. That's why there's a contract. That's why there... It says, "You are you, I am me, and we're going to have to create a contract as- as something that would bring unity into this." But at no point does a good marriage say, "You have to be exactly l- like me. You have to conform to who I am and what I want to do and what I do." A successful marriage allows for flexibility and growth of the two individuals over a course of a period of time that then creates, you know, some dynamic, you know, synergy that is, uh, where the- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Unity allows for the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts. Conformity dis- dissolves the potential for creativity, co-creation, and a future of hope. And so those are two examples of where I think we're at. You could go through almost every word in the English language to show the differences between, uh, a manipu- uh, a- a philosophy of existence that's perspective-driven and a philosophy of existence

5. 23:16 – 37:25

   Why is Earth So Chaotic?

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush23:16

      that's based on- on elements of truth.

   2. CWChris Williamson23:19

      I think that strikes at a thread I've been thinking about a lot recently, and I- I believe that it's a particularly American phenomenon. Um, it's one of the few countries that talk very openly about how much we love our country, or at least you used to up until very recently.

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush23:38

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson23:38

      Um, and, uh, it would be very emergent bottom-up and very dictatorial top-down. You know, the Star-Spangled Banner is flying behind the president as he's inaugurated. Like, "I pledge my allegiance to the flag..." You know, school kids, everything. It was everywhere, permeated through the culture you saw this. Um, and one of the things that I think you're starting to see now is a particular minority of people who are also almost rebelling against the love for their country, but that narrative is still there. And what that's doing is it's basically saying, "I don't trust that you are genuinely a part of our team, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to force you to make the mouth noises that you need to make in order for me to believe that you're a part of my team. And that's the difference. You're not in unity with me. If you're in unity, I would just have faith." And I think when you expand this out across the globe-I wonder whether a different version of Earth, of humans would have needed so much bureaucracy to, to exist. I'm aware that we've over-complicated the way that we live, right? Like, I'm aware that we are maladapted for the current environment that we're in. But it does seem like an awful lot of complexity that we're going through in a desperate attempt to just kind of keep going on. And man, like, let me just reel off some stuff that's happened over the last six months. So we've had some of the Black Lives Matter riots, we've had the Capitol Hill siege, we've had this Myanmar military coup, we've had the Uighur Muslims in China, we've had the Russian... leader of the Russian opposition, uh, being jailed now for two and a half years. That potentially may get moved up to a decade of forced labor. The leader of the Russian opposition, remembering that he only got, um, poisoned with a nerve agent, Novichok, six months ago. We've got the farmers' strikes over in India. Man, that is glo- if you're not in New Zealand or Australia, you're pretty close to some serious shit that's going on. Do you have any conception over w- if, uh, are these things linked? W- what's happening here? Why is there so much chaos?

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush25:49

      Yeah, certainly linked. And, and interestingly, there's biologic models, uh, that, that will parallel the, the human paradigm that you just laid out there. So, um, you mentioned Australia being kind of untouched by this stuff, but it turns out they had the largest, you know, forest fires in, in, in national history in that same period of time. And those fires were, uh, caused by a failure of, uh, ecosystem management, really. And so in the failure of farmland management and, and the care of soil and water systems, they set themselves up for that massive fire. And then within months, we see the biggest fires in California history and through the same process of, uh, a lack of care and responsibility to soil, water, and air systems in those regions. And those played right into the spread of the pandemic. They s- you know, the viruses bind to the carbon particulate i- in the air from those fires and, and speed spread of all kinds of pathogens. Um, so there's, there's very close links, uh, between human biology and planetary biology. And so as we start to talk about the sixth great extinction, which we are, you know, halfway through here, we've lost some, maybe 40, 50% of, of life diversity on the planet in just a, a short 40, 50 years, and, uh, we're, we're thinking we only have 60, 65, 70 harvests left on the planet, the speed of, of the degradation of arable, uh, arable lands. That decimation of the sixth extinction has an interesting influence, uh, that we've been studying very specifically in my laboratory over the last eight years is, is the relationship between the microbiome and the human immune system. When you lose the microbiome, which is an extension of your macrobiome, your macro ecosystem, what air you breathe, what foods you touch, what soils that w- created your food, all of that big ecosystem actually translates into the diversity or the failure of diversity within your microbiome, which is your skin, your sinuses, your gut, you know, every organ system within your body now recognized to have another niche w- of, of bacteria and fungi that are living within that organ. And so we are this teeming organic garden that reflects the outer world. And the interesting work that we've been doing is showing that when you lose the microbiome, you actually lose the barrier between the outside world and your immune system, and the immune system goes into an overwhelm. And we call it leaky gut, we call it leaky brain, all these things. But those terms sug- are, are describing this phenomenon that the world around us starts to force a, a complete a- uh, mobilization of all warfare at the inflammation level of our immune system. So we turn into this chronic inflammatory machine. And interestingly, when, when you show a population, uh, into this, uh, devastating injury where you spray, uh, Roundup, the, the most common herbicide on the planet, and you know, 4 billion pounds of this stuff sprayed globally every year. When you spray that chemical, it functions as an antibiotic, and, and that whole population now starts to lose, it loses its microbiome. Secondarily, that chemical happens to break down that barrier even faster. It's a direct injury to the barrier system between your gut and your immune system. And so this one chemical gets sprayed, and what you see is a rise in major depression, anxiety disorders, and all of this. But you can actually see this play out in politics, i- in the American politics is the stress of the environment of the individual results in more and more biologic inflammation. And you can see this in most of our presidential candidates will suddenly go into the hospital or go into, you know, a week of health collapse just a month or two before the election. They grind themselves into the ground, and they have a health crisis. Leading up to the grinding into the ground and then, and their hospitalization, if you watch their speeches, they get more and more animosity and infl- inflammatory rhetoric in their speech. And so what we see happening in Myanmar, what we ha- see s- happening in all these places that you just said is extreme human conflict, more and more divisive, inflammatory words, actions, militant behavior. In a bizarre way, I'm suggesting that is all symptomatic. It's not even a cause, it's not even, you know, some root cause problem. It's literally a symptom of biologic collapse of our planet. We can anticipate that we will literally tear each other to pieces in the coming six decades as we watch the end of this extinction happen if we follow the same destructive microbiologic approach, you know, to warfare. W- if we start killing the microbes of, a, a, at faster and faster efforts, if we fear all the viruses and we fear all the bacteria and we spray Clorox all over this planet, you will watch humans destroy themselves through war, through technology, through any mechanism they can think of because they're gonna be scrabbling for the last few, you know, scrips of bread on the planet, this scarcity mentality drivenit- driving itself into the ground.... if we turn around, there's a whole world of biodiversity in nature, he- health and healing waiting to heal the ecosystems. And when we start living in those environment, we simply behave differently. And so we need to re- to- to give a sense of grace, I think, to humanity right now. We need to forgive each other and say, "You're acting like a freaking moron. You are an asshole. You're destructive, you're combative, you're- you're, you know, imprisoning your- your opposition." "You're doing whatever in Russia, you're doing whatever in Myanmar." I actually recognize that that's just a symptom of a greater collapse of biology and integrity on this planet. And so in that moment of forgiveness, in that moment of grace, and we say, "Oh, we're just all acting exactly how biology would predict us to act," we need a new biology which would be based on a new philosophy of who we are and- and where we fit within a complex microecosystem, macroecosystem, within a complex web of life on Earth. If we rephilosophize where we are and what does human integrity rather than human ethic look like, what does human unity rather than human conformity look like, if we start stepping through that philosophy, the behaviors that we see filling up the headlines simply disappear.

   6. CWChris Williamson32:05

      How do you feel about the development and the roll out of the COVID vaccine?

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush32:10

      The most fi- fascinating scientific thing that's ever happened, right? And so I've got, you know, thousands of colleagues and hundreds of thousands of, you know, audience members and everything else that have been following all- everything I've been doing for the last 10 years. And, uh, you know, you've got tens of millions of consumers in the United States that are all reaching for non-GMO products on the shelf. Everybody's starting to be afraid of GMO, non-GMO, watch out for Roundup, watch out for this. So you have consumers bending over backwards to- to get only organic food, only this, and now they're lining up for a vaccine that directly genetically modifies their children. And that's freaking fascinating. And so from a scientific viewpoint, this is one of the most interesting moments in- in human history because for the first time, not- we're- we're not just saying we're in conflict with nature, we're actually taking over the reins from nature and saying, "We're going to create a manifest destiny of our own genomics, and we believe that we know which genes need to be turned on, which genes need to be inserted into the human experience so that we can produce some future health or future experience that would be independent of nature." Whereas it's the first step towards a genetic modification program to believe that we can be independent from nature. I find it fascinating. I mean, it- it is the most vile of scientific mistakes on one level. It is the most extreme hubris of human behavior on another side of the equation. And on the- the final, you know, judgment of it, it's perfect. It's exactly the next step that we should take, because in doing this, we begin the journey into finding out who we really are, which is a figment of the beautiful imagination and creativity of nature, of that imagination. The figment of the imagination of nature is beauty, and what we are- are delving into right now is a really dark, dark manipulation of- of genomics and, eh, it's wrapped in this altruistic, you know, mission and all this. Uh, but in ... if- if you can't handle that news as to its genetic modification, it's screwing with nature, it's ... that's okay 'cause y- it'll take you a few years to- to have the perspective on it because I don't know what it's gonna look like yet. Uh, we certainly have a lot of science to suggest why we should be very concerned about what's about to unfold in the 12 months following mass vaccination with- uh, with a vaccine or- or ... Vaccine's actually not even a very accurate term to it. This isn't a vaccine. This is pure genetic modification. Eh, the hope is that it then has an antibody response similar to what would happen if we gave a true vaccine. A vaccine is a- a- a debilitated form of- of a bacteria or a virus or something like that. But this is the first time we're just giving a genetic signal for us to make viral components so that we hope we make antibodies to it. And so, uh, so it's not really a vaccine in- in the ... in what I think should be the pure definition of it. Um, but it- it's an extraordinary, uh, genetic modification and we won't see the- the ramifications for, unfortunately, a few months and- and year after, you know, we've already done it. And- and at that point, the- the Pandora's box has been opened and the response to the downsides of what's about to happen is gonna be a scramble of technology saying, "Oh, well, we can patch that up with this new gene and this is an ... this is the new gene you need this year." And so next year, we're gonna have another multi-billion dollar, you know, scheme in place to say, "Well, I ... we realized that one missed a little bit and the virus modified, so now you need this gene to make this protein." And you start to see the slippery slope. You know, we have 10 to the 31 viruses in our en- environment. That's 10 million times more viruses in the ... just the air than are in the entire universe of stars. And so you've got, you know, eh, this interesting moment where we're gonna start the slippery slope and you need this one protein. Oh, really? You need one protein out of the 10 to the 31 viruses that code for proteins? This is the one protein we're missing to be healthy? And of course we're gonna miss and then they'll say, "Well, actually it's this gene that you need next year." And you can see the slippery slope where we're gonna all be racing for the next, uh, Apple iPhone, yes, but just as much for the new gene that we need next year. And so this is the beginning of an arms race in science and- and in pharmaceutical, uh, warfare to find the next gene that- that we can create a narrative around so that humans think they need that next gene, and we're gonna make trillions and trillions of dollars of- of- of money manifest in this march away from nature.... and in a few scary years, we're gonna find out that we, we engineered ourselves into an, an envelope that has, uh, that has secured our, our place far from nature. And in that, we will see our demise. And, and that's, that's the course we're on. But I love human consciousness for its fickleness.

   8. CWChris Williamson37:09

      (laughs)

   9. ZBDr. Zach Bush37:10

      We rarely go the same direction for very long, and so I think we could learn an incredible lesson from that, and finally start to redirect everything from science to, you know, international funding towards research and science in a new and different direction when we start to realize the mistakes we've

6. 37:25 – 47:57

   Will Humanity Survive the Next Century?

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush37:25

      made.

   2. CWChris Williamson37:26

      I promise that I didn't mean to just talk about existential risks throughout this podcast, but it does definitely seem like that's what we're, we're stumbling upon. Um, the next 100 years really are, as Toby Ord calls it, "The precipice," I think, for humanity. The potential advent of artificial general intelligence and m- misaligned superintelligent AGI, um, is the biggest, as far as he's concerned, a one in ten chance that it causes us to go extinct within the next 100 years. And he gives our chances of making it through the next 100 years at five out of six. So, there's a one in six chance that between all of the different things, engineered pandemics, natural pandemics, uh, nanotechnology, the unknown unknowns, the natural risks, the anthropogenic risks, everything bundled together. The more that situations like this occur, the more that we believe our own hubris, I think that's a good word, like a civilizational hubris, um, a over-quoting of the naturalistic fallacy as well. The more that we do that, the more it seems to me that we are stacking the odds in the favor of us h- running straight into the great filter, whatever that's, that may be, and maybe we've already passed it. Maybe the great filter that stops civilizations from reaching their full genetic potential, their full civilizational potential and colonizing the galaxy, perhaps we've already got past it. Maybe it was prokaryotic to eukaryotic life, maybe it was the presence of liquid water, maybe it was whatever, whatever it might be, and maybe we've got past it and maybe we're gonna fall at the hurdle of thinking that we're smarter than nature. And only in retrospect are we actually gonna know what the hell we should've done.

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush39:10

      (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that's the opportunity, and, you know, on our current course, I think i- if we don't have a fundamental change in philosophy, then the systems of economics, the systems of technology, information technologies in particular, uh, those systems will, will accelerate and I think the, the, the one out of six is, is actually very optimistic, um, if we, if we maintain our current philosophy. Uh, but there's a lot of things that I think could occur that we can't quite imagine yet that would instantaneously, so fundamentally change our entire human, human experience and human philosophy. And one of those would be, uh, the, the visible appearance, uh, of a, you know, a global appearance of some of our neighbors. And so, i- if we have intelligent life visit this planet in a visible fashion, and, uh, we are presented with a, a diplomatic, uh, uh, a diplomatic front of four or five other species that live around the universe, and they show up here to have a discussion of where we are and, and where we could go, uh, everything would change in an instant. Spiritu- our spiritual identity, our scientific identity, our philosophical identity, all would change in an instant when these, these other, uh, uh, species show up. We tend to call them aliens and then it sounds like a conspiracy theory and all of this. But, uh, I, I really believe there's a, a high likelihood that we are seeing signs and, and, and symptoms of intelligent life bumping into the planet here. And-

   4. CWChris Williamson40:59

      What like?

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush40:59

      ... uh, what's that?

   6. CWChris Williamson40:59

      What like?

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush41:01

      What life?

   8. CWChris Williamson41:02

      What signs? What signs have you seen?

   9. ZBDr. Zach Bush41:03

      What signs? I think that, uh, one of the telltale signs of, of it is, is, is sudden in- sudden innovations or insights that percolate up through the planet simultaneously and, and in a multifocal fashion. And so instead of one group innovating and coming up with, uh, a new electric car and they call it Tesla and they go seed that thing all over the world in a new monolithic company, when I see sudden breakthroughs in intelligence or, or, uh, psy- psychological, um, mindset happening all over the planet simultaneously, I interpret that as a high, one of the high likelihoods that's occurring at that point is a shift in the, the frequency resonance on the planet. And one of the ways in which that would happen is people in that resonance, which w- you know, in, in the resonance I'm talking about, I'm talking about maybe what people think of a- as consciousness, but i- actually consciousness is kind of like ethic where it requires (laughs) a perspective. It's really about a knowledge field, and, uh, the way in which knowledge, uh, emanates and manifests life, uh, in the universe is through vibration. And so vibrational changes on our planet are happening that are f- changing the philosophy of humans, and it manifests as new technologies, it manifests as new forms of communication and education and all kinds of things shifting. And, uh, and so there's, without going into things that, you know, specifics that I think are, are replicated 'cause then everybody will have an opinion about them. "Well, maybe it's that," and they'll have a thousand different things. That general concept of why would suddenly the Earth shift its vibration such that all of us would know something new? (laughs) You know, and I think that if you start to look around at the world around you, you'll realize we are starting to make these seismic shifts in awareness, these seismic shifts in our sense of self and our potential to change the world.... uh, if you, if you can't s- find the evidence of that in yourself, then look to children right now. Um, watch a group of autistic children together and see how they see the world, and see what reality they create around themselves. And then you come to terms with maybe there's one in 25 humans on the planet with a- an autism spectrum disorder right now, at least in the in- industrialized nations at those numbers. And then, and that number might be as high as one in three by, by 2035, in 15 years. And so humanity is literally changing its neural wiring. It's manifesting in things like autism spectrum and Asperger's and some of these hyperintelligent different ways of looking at the world. Are they aliens? No. But they are tapping into a vibration of consciousness that we haven't had access to before as humanity. And so I think we're becoming vulnerable to an opportunity for cataclysmic shift in awareness. And I think that if there are other intelligent species out there, they're sensing that opportunity; and if any time in human history they were gonna show up, it would be about now because we are seeing this dichotomy of, of the collapse of human consciousness and the, and the rise of human consciousness a- as, as it's talked about widely. And so I think there's an opportunity here where a single touch from a, from a neighbor, uh, another species, would, would really fundamentally change everything instantly. And so you mentioned not wanting to talk about existential threats, but it is ... if we're gonna mention those, it's also fun to think about existential corrections and existential healing moments. And one of those would be we're not alone and we're on our perfect path. We had to get to this stage of scientific in- in... you know, innovation, socio- sociologic innovation. We had to go through the, the fits and spurts of, of human respect and integrity to get to the point where we could handle the news that we're not alone, the universe is, is working towards biodiversity in all of its sectors. And we can play on that new sandbox level of the galaxy or the universe, and that's what we're being called into next. And so now nobody's worried about how big Monsanto is or whether 5G is good or bad or any of these things. Now it's a discussion of how do we sit at the feet of higher intelligent species and let them learn from us. We are one hell of an emotional species, which might be one of our most unique aspects. They, I'm sure, are, are in wonderment over it. "I wonder what it feels like to be in such emotional conflict as humans are able to feel? I wonder what that feels like?" And so maybe we're here to demonstrate something to the greater universe because the universe is certainly not asking us to conform. I think it wants us instead to be in unity, but not conformity, and it wants to bring all of our human weirdness and all of our human quirkiness into this ecology of, of, of higher intelligence.

   10. CWChris Williamson45:42

       That is something that I've only just realized. I would be interested to know if you agree with me that I think it would be difficult for any sufficiently advanced alien civilization to be much more emotional than us because too much emotiona- uh, too much emotion reduces your ability to coordinate, and you need quite high levels of coordination in order to be able to achieve anything as a civilization. If you ramped up our emotions by another 20 or 30%, I think you have nation-states falling apart, I don't think that you can hold companies together or I think that people are fighting in the workshop on the floor of SpaceX. I think the pilots are punching each other as they're taking off from the, from the tarmac. So that really is, uh, an insight I've never even thought of before, I'm a bit gobsmacked I haven't thought of it, but it would be difficult to imagine a more emotional civilization than ours because they just wouldn't be able to get anything done.

   11. ZBDr. Zach Bush46:43

       You're spot on. A- and, uh, er, that really comes down to the individual level even. So, you know, as a physician, I've very often seen very functional individuals, uh, tumble into psychotic breaks; and, uh, in a psychotic break, your emotions, uh, start to dictate a new reality. You'll hallucinate. You'll, you'll, you'll s- have visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations. You'll have new paranoia. You'll create a whole new narrative in your head about the reality you live in within moments. And, you know, it only takes a few seconds of neurochemistry perturbation to that emotional cascade in your, in your tiny little part of your brain called the hippocampus to lead you down this completely false, uh, pathway, uh, that, that actually usurps your own self-identity. And so not only would we be dysfunctional as a society, we would be so dysfunctional as individuals if you... when you ration up the emotional, you know, codex even slightly. Uh, 20% would probably be, you know, uh, catastrophic, but even a, even a 5%, uh, you know, increase in our, in our, uh, in our subjugation to the emotional brain w- renders us useless, you know?

   12. CWChris Williamson47:54

       We've talked so far about some fairly

7. 47:57 – 51:19

   How to Stay Mentally Strong

   1. CWChris Williamson47:57

      scary, terrifying topics, and it has been a difficult 12 months for pretty much everyone c- worldwide. What would you say to people who are wanting to be a little bit more robust mentally? What are some of the insights that you use for yourself around mental health, and what would you tell them to be able to hold onto and to value so that they can keep themselves level over the next 12 months?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush48:23

      I think I would move back to, you know, what we were talking about earlier about, uh, the moment of silence or the moment of, of where movement stops. You know, if you can create that pause a- and do that daily, to listen long enough for a new reality, don't even have any preconc- uh, conceived notions of what that might look like. Maybe you'll think about your life or maybe you'll think about your relationships, maybe think about your children, whatever it is. But allow yourself a few minutes a day to go into a completely silent state where you try to bring all the molecules in your body into a state of...... pause so that it can pick up on the subtle tones, the subtle messages, the subtle energies that will point you in the direction of the flow of the real universe, the bigger universe ar- that's, that's guiding and, you know, forming, uh, the human experience in its tiny little sector of, of the reality we live in. And so, um, free yourself up of the human mind for a moment and make yourself an antenna to the universe to say, "Which way are you flowing? Which way is the planet flowing? Put me into alignment with that." And then when you open your eyes back up, start to reimagine everything that was just taking up your mind, your relationships, your job, your, the book you're reading, the Netflix series you're watching, whatever it is, and start to, to inquire, "Is that in line with what I just experienced in the silence?" And if it's not, lose that thing as quick as possible and reimagine it in the form of, you know, something that is aligned with it. Lose your, your previous perception of your partner and imagine a new relationship with that partner. What if you let them be somebody completely new in the next millisecond, and what if they let you be somebody new in the next millisecond? Who would you both become? What would be the potential of, of it? It seems like too many options, too many things, but you will know exactly which direction to go if you took the silent moment. So take the silent moment, allow the atomic structure of your body to align with a flow that you are not in alignment with right now, and allow for redirection to happen. And then imagine yourself untied to any previous identity, role, whatever it is, self- self-perception, free yourself up and see if you can bring into alignment a new manifestation of who you are and what you're here to do at the tipping point of human history.

   3. CWChris Williamson50:47

      Man, that would be, that would be incredibly beautiful if everyone was able to do that. There's a, a concept called the mindfulness gap that Corey Allen talks about, and that's, uh, interjection, the break point between stimulus and response, is the single greatest gift I think I've got from meditation. And it still only occurs once every hundred times, but the times that it does, I just think, like, the, uh, it's the best gift I think I've ever given myself as well. You know, one of the most useful skills that I think I've acquired.

8. 51:19 – 55:00

   What is the Future of Health?

   1. CWChris Williamson51:19

      Um, moving forward, what do you think the future of health over the next few years has in store? I know that you're massive into the microbiome, into gut health, into topsoil management, into all of these different things. What do you think is going to be the future of health?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush51:36

      Uh, I, I, I can't see one future. I, I see multiple futures, and they are, uh, extremely dichotomous. You know, you, you can't fit one next to the other. Uh, we're not gonna have some blend of these futures. We're, we're, uh, it's either gonna be the devastation of, of the sixth extinction and, and s- the human health will continue to decline all the way into our extinct, uh, experience. Um, or you, you find pockets of humanity that begin pilot projects of a new humanity. And that might be a nation state, it might be a community, um, but I think we're gonna start decentralizing the human, human experience, uh, so that we can start to do these pilot projects. And, uh, that, that would allow a great amount of experimentation. And so, um, if you started to imagine unplugging from the current, current narrative, the current paradigm and saying, "What would I do at the household level, uh, to bring myself and my children and my, my friends, family into alignment with nature in the way that we eat breakfast?" Well, first of all, we'd have to touch nature, and so what if breakfast was we all ran out with our cup of coffee and tea in hand and, uh, sit in the garden and, and harvest a few things that we'll throw into the skillet for breakfast? And, and so we're gonna start in gratitude and receipt from nature, uh, and maybe there's a tiny little vertical garden in the backyard or next to our front stoop, uh, or maybe it's a huge, you know, CSA that's down the street or a farmer's market nearby, and we begin the day connected to nature, and then we start to m- to, uh, reorganize around that. Um, so, uh, it's gonna be in these small little pilot projects at the, at the mental level and at the, at the execution level, uh, that we start to imagine a different future. Um, but, uh, it, that future can't exist in the common narrative, and so you can't think that you're gonna somehow go to the gym enough to avoid extinction. It just doesn't work that way. You, you, you literally are going to, um, be, uh, eh, extinct with the rest of biology on the planet unless you can create a microcosm around you that turns into a macrocosm. And so that begins in your own thought process and your own behavior, um, but I think you're gonna find out because of this high intelligence state that we're starting to, to have access to, you're gonna be able to start to attract people to you that are of like mind and of like, um, like experience and of complementary skill sets that could, could start to scale your idea to become a community, to com- to become greater. Never before have I seen so many millionaires leaving California to buy swathes of land and inviting everybody they know to, "Hey, do you want to set up a homestead?" You know, no, Topanga Canyon's, like, emptying out, uh, uh, and that Los Angeles at this insane rate while we have, like, farmland in Idaho and all of this stuff getting bought up at exam- extreme rates. So this is, this is what I mean when I think I see symptoms of higher intelligence sharing with us information streams, and we can pivot in a moment where people who've never owned a farm are suddenly buying farms 'cause they just have received information through that subconscious silent moment to say, "Oh, my God, I was doing the wrong thing. I'm, it's, somewhere over here is the right direction. I'm willing to dive in completely." Um, so this is happening all over the planet right now. And so make yourself part of that future that we can't quite see. I think there's many versions of that future, and it's really up to you, uh, what, what future comes to manifest itself and, and what role you play in it.

9. 55:00 – 57:25

   Science & Spirituality

   1. CWChris Williamson55:00

      You're an MD. You've spent a lot of time palliative care, all this time doing research and working one-to-one, like, proper spit-and-sawdust in the trenches stuff, and then the research and the podcasts. Why do you talk with such a spiritual edge to the things that you do coming from that background?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush55:25

      Yeah, I, I guess, you know, spirituality is, you know, a word that we've put on it. Um, I think it, ultimately it's philosophy again, (laughs) you know, is that if we don't find fundamental truths that then shape the direction of our actions, uh, we are lost. And so, uh, we can talk about life and death situations, we can talk about macroeconomics, we can talk about politics, we can talk about, you know, health systems, whatever we want to talk about, but if they're not pinned down fundamentally on truth, uh, then, then it's just somebody's opinion. And so the reason I try to always tie it back is to make sure that I can access my anchor points that are now in, in philosophical spaces of integrity instead of ethics, of unity instead of conformity. And, uh, you know, and start finding those, those bricks in your reality that allow you to move not only within your own, you know, self-described specialty or something like that, but you're gonna find out that it's fractal. Once you find truth, it, uh, wi- will apply in every other scale of life, every other specialty of life, every other environment that you can think of. Truth always scales horizontally, vertically, through all systems because it cannot be separated from any other element of nature because nature has integrity, which means there is absolutely no conflict budg- b- between or within any of the truths that make up that whole thing that we call nature. And so that's maybe where, uh, all of my podcasts and, and public appearances come back to, is, uh, you're gonna start to see some of the truths that have shaped my life, and when I say them, you're gonna pick them up and go build a different life for yourself that I can't even picture or experience because you already know what to do with them because you just found a truth, and you're gonna go do something with that.

   3. CWChris Williamson57:13

      Zach, thank you so much for today, man. We didn't even touch on essentially anything that I-

   4. ZBDr. Zach Bush57:19

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson57:19

      ... thought that we were going to talk about, um, but that doesn't matter because we have time and we can do this again. Uh,

10. 57:25 – 1:00:28

    Where to Find Zach

    1. CWChris Williamson57:25

       if the people who are listening want to find out more about your work and ION Gut and ION Health, where should they go?

    2. ZBDr. Zach Bush57:31

       Yeah. Uh, we've got zachbuschmd.com is, like, my educational environment, so lots of access points to everything I do through that website, Z-A-C-H B-U-S-C-H-M-D .com. Uh, you've got ionbiome.com is, uh, the science of the, of the microbiome and how it is, uh, impacting human health. Uh, we've got a whole product line there with gut health, sinus health, a skin health product coming out as well. Um, so understanding the role of the microbiome's communication in, in human, uh, rates of repair and regeneration has been our expertise, and it's a really compelling, uh, argument that, uh, biodiversity and communication is the fundamental heart of biology, and it's a good template for you to start to live your life by. So ION Biome, I-O-N B-I-O-M-e.com, find you that. Our nonprofit is projectbiome.com, I'm sorry, .org, projectbiome.org is the nonprofit, uh, one of our first big projects was farmersfootprint.us. Uh, we're also just launching, uh, a sister one in Australia with, uh, Project Biome Australia, uh, coming off the ground. So, eh, in that space you discover, uh, why, uh, it is so necessary for all of us to be part of the revolution of chemical agriculture into regenerative agriculture, uh, to reset the biology on the planet for a future that is less inflammatory, that is less, uh, divisive, and, uh, allows for the integrity and unity to come back in. So projectbiome.org, uh, will find you all that nonprofit work and, uh, you'll, you can keep exploring with us. If you want a deep dive on just an educational experience, I started the Global Health Education Initiative a few months ago. The first topic was The Virome, an hour and 20 minute, uh, lecture that I think will just completely blow your mind as to what viruses are and, and what we know about them and how everything that's happening in the last year is completely old science that dates back at least 50 years, a lot of it 100 years old, and is erroneous. And so, uh, blow your mind over what's already known about this, th- the beauty of the virome and, and how it supports and is in fact the source of human life, not against it. Um, and blow your mind there. The Innate Immune System we just did, it is much different than the adaptive immune system that they want you to think about around vaccines. The innate immune system is actually what keeps you in balance with the virome. Uh, and then coming out, uh, in just a couple weeks, uh, is, uh, a, a big project that I've been working on for almost nine months, and I'm calling it What Happened Last Year. And so, uh, it's a big look at, at, at public health and how we in- uh, can use public health statistics to mani- manipulate a, a global narrative, uh, of who we are and where we belong. So Global Health Initiative there at zachbuschmd.com. Uh, we'll get you into all of that stuff. So lots of ways to engage, and I, I look forward to staying engaged.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:10

       Man, thank you so much for your day.

    4. ZBDr. Zach Bush1:00:12

       Thank you for having me on, Chris.

    5. NANarrator1:00:16

       (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:00:29