The Joe Rogan Experience - #1845 - Zachary Levi

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Zachary Levi is an actor best known as the star of the superhero film "Shazam!" and the hit television series "Chuck." His new memoir, "Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others" is available now.

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day how are you uh uh climatizing to austin i love it it's great isn't it yeah i've been here now like we're going yeah so i've been here now for two years and just totally feels like home i love it it's such a great town it's the best the people are so it. It's such a great town. It's the best. The people are so nice. Yeah. It's such a great place to live. Yeah. And it's,

one of the things I love about it is how well nature is protected here. Like Barton Springs, for example, or even like, I can't think of another major city I've been to anywhere in the world that has a river that goes through the middle of the city that anyone is playing on.

Austin is the only place I've ever been to where there's a river in the middle of the city and there's people kayaking and paddle boarding and doing all of the things. You're like, that's what we should be doing in all of our rivers. And it's clean.

It's so clean. Yeah, that's what's crazy. You know, one of the comedy clubs that I was going to buy, there was a problem with it. And the problem was there was a parking lot and the parking lot was at the bottom of a long hill. And if it rained rained the rain water would come down and get all the oil and all the bullshit from people's cars from the parking lot and then

take it over the hill into the creek and so they they were supposed to have installed this big great bio containment pond oh yeah it's a really wild thing. They had to literally build a pond, and then they had to surround the pond with very specific plants that filter out shit and suck everything up. I was like, I'm out. That's more than I want. Thanks. But it wasn't even that. It was just like, I could see the headline, Joe Rogan kills fish with his shitty comedy

club. I was like, no. With the comedy club. Yeah. That was the tool. I am not doing anything that is ever going to be an environmental concern. I'm not. If it's up for debate, I'm fucking, I'm out.

No. I'm out. Well, to the extent that we should never be doing anything that's fucking up the planet would be great if we could all agree on that. That would be great. That's a good idea. It's like this agreement to fuck up the planet a little bit so you can get more gas mileage,

or agreement to fuck up the planet a little bit so it's easier for you to do X, Y, or Z. Certainly, but also I think, well, it's just industry run rampant, man. I mean, you know, that's what most of it is anyway. It's greed on a really high level that we all kind of just accept because it's like, well, that's capitalism, I guess, or whatever.

We all agree that companies should try to make the most amount of money every year always. Like you're always supposed to make more money. But I feel like we do, which is I don't think that's such a bad thing to the extent that it should never be at the expense of life, of human life and plant life and animal life. Like to the extent that industry is milking every single dollar, right, out of everything. Yeah. Just so what? So their bottom line is better. So their shareholders are happier.

So their CEO makes a better salary that year. It's all just high level greed. And they could still all make so much money and not kill everything. That's what's really crazy is like everybody always wants to do better. Like no one wants to maintain. No one wants to say, hey, you know, this company makes a hundred million dollars a year. This is great. Yeah.

We're good. Everybody high five. Let's keep the ball rolling. We all get vacation time and we all live a wonderful life. No. No, you got to have more, man. Yeah. And you got to put in overtime.

We got to increase our bottom line. We got to fucking, why aren't these things moving off the shelves? Have you seen Succession? Yes. Love it. It's so good. Love it. It's so good, but it's also so terrifying because you're watching it being like, yeah,

that's going on right now. Oh, for sure. That's so representative of multiple different, you know. Dude, I know people like that. Such a bummer. Such a bummer. I physically know people like that who got all their money from their parents and they're just bat shit crazy and doing blow and wearing $50,000 watches and just-

And just going for more and more and more and more and more at the expense of everyone and everything else. Never ends. Never ends. Yeah. And it's always, you have to have the newest, latest, greatest thing. Yeah. You have to have the 2023 Mercedes right when it comes out.

Like, everybody's balling in this weird, like, performative way. Well, and we all celebrate it, which is the saddest thing, honestly. I mean, look at Instagram. All of it. I mean, if you drive a Lambo, how many likes do you – you know what I mean? Yeah. And we all also – I mean, nothing against people who own Lamborghinis, but do you know what i mean it's like and we all also i mean not nothing against people who own lamborghinis but it you know we all kind of sense that that's flashy anyway why are we so caught up in that and yet it still is getting all the likes and getting all the shares and

people still particularly young people are still like gunning for that aiming for that like i want to be that cool it's like no you don't that's not the kind of life that you want to be living or aspiring to it's not real they're not even living that life that like if you're posing in front of a Lamborghini just by virtue of the fact that you're posing yeah yeah you're not really living your life posing this is fake lots and lots of poses you're standing there in like a fancy pose yeah to show how badass you look at my Lambo man yeah and perhaps you have a bandana and no shirt on In like a fancy pose to show how badass you are. Look at my Lambo, man. Yeah. And perhaps you have a bandana and no shirt on.

Maybe you're really wild. Maybe you're like that. Every Lambo owner I know. Rich eccentric guy with flip flops. That's a weird one. The flip flop guy. I don't even give a fuck, bro. I'm out here on flip flops.

My Lamborghini. I mean, I am a flip flop fan, so. Nothing wrong with flip flops, but flip flops and a Lamborghini. But I like my Crocs even more. I wore my Crocs specifically today. Because you and my judge were hating on them. I'm like, bro, these are, by the way, Texas flag Crocs. That looks like somebody did that, though.

Like an artist did it. I mean, I picked them up at Walmart. I don't know where I picked them up, but Academy. That's where I think I grabbed them. I was hoping there was like some sort of a flea market or some shit. Oh, that would have been fun, too. Like they were somebody else's Crocs before. Oh, even better.

One grosser way to make Crocs. But, dude, Crocs are awesome, though. For real. I believe you. They're very comfortable. You're talking to a guy who wears a fanny pack. I am on no moral high ground. No moral fashion high ground.

I have fucking no fashion sense. Fanny packs are back, though, bro. Fanny packs are back. I never let them go. No. I kept them through the 90s. I really did. I kept wearing fanny packs.

They're very handy. They're handy. I'm never going to stop. We don't have purses. That's the closest thing we have to a damn purse. A lot of folks are sporting that shoulder thing now. Yeah, they get the cross thing. The cross thing's all right. It's acceptable. Yeah. I'm amenable to a purse. If a man that shoulder thing now. Cross thing. Cross thing's all right.

It's acceptable. I'm amenable to a purse. If a man wants to wear a purse, zero problem with that. Absolutely. A purse even. I mean, maybe dudes start getting dope purses because girls have been dominating the purse game. No, but they kind of do. I mean, I've seen some dudes with some, again, Gucci or Fendi things that they're wearing around their belt that are basically like a little purse, essentially.

When I was a boy, you would get punched in the face for that. I mean, yeah, probably. Man wants to walk around with a purse? You got to get a knuckle sandwich from a stranger. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think my sisters dressed me up in some of their shit occasionally. Do you think it's just guys ran out of ways to bling?

So they had to add purses to it? I mean, here's the thing. For me, maybe it's a bling thing. For me, it's theses to it. I mean, here's the thing. For me, maybe it's a blank thing. For me, it's the... Convenience. It's the utility of it. Like as a guy, again, we don't have a purse. So I'm always like wearing some cargo shit. I'm wearing a jacket that's got extra pockets

because that's where I got it. Especially when I was like back in the day when I was a smoker, I'd have my cigarettes and my lighter and my gum and all this. I needed all that. Yeah. Those places.

I don't have this thing to go rummage around in and go find it. What if you need a snack? And what if you need a snack? Can't I have a fucking protein bar in my bag? No. I can't keep a protein bar in my pocket. That's gross. And which pocket?

That's going to get real mangled real fast. It's going to be all gooey and all the chocolate on the outside is going to be melted off. Yeah, you don't want that. Fuck all that. You don't want that protein bar. Yeah, the purse thing is an interesting thing and you could also do a satchel to show they're interesting. Like you're

an intelligent, interesting person. You have a nice worn Indiana Jones type satchel. Sexy, intelligent satchels. Right? Exactly. Yes. That's a look. Like a guy with a satchel probably reads a lot. Absolutely. Why else have a satchel if you don't have a lot of books in there? He's got books in there. He's got look. Like a guy with a satchel probably reads a lot. Absolutely. Why else have a satchel if you don't have a lot of books in there?

He's got books in there. He's got a lot of books. He's got a journal he's going to write about meeting you. I played this character, Flynn Rider, in this Disney movie Tangled, and I had a satchel. And he's a very charming, intelligent man. You were the voice of Flynn Rider. That's right. Yeah, bro.

Dude, I watched that movie at least 80 times. I'm not kidding. You've got girls. I've met young girls. Yeah, man. They were of the perfect age. Yeah, bro. Dude, I watched that movie at least 80 times. I'm not kidding. You've got young girls. Yeah, man. They were of the perfect age. So I watched that movie forever. I didn't know that was you. Yeah, man.

That's hilarious. It's a treat. It's one of the coolest things I've ever done. Dude, I loved you in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. You were great in that. Thanks, man. That's a fun, fun show. Dude, that show is-

Really fun show. It's so well done. Amy Sherman, Palladino, and her husband, Dan, they are, and really everybody involved in that show, but they are, I think they're geniuses. I think that the way they write, direct, produce, so much of that, the two of them, plus lots of other talented people, obviously,

that come in and direct and produce and write and all of the incredible actors. But it's one of those things where it's just delightful. You watch the show and you're just delighted from the beginning to the end. And Rachel and Tony, the whole actors. But it's one of those things where it's just delightful. You watch the show and you're just delighted from the beginning to the end. And Rachel and Tony, the whole cast are just so charming and the writing is so smart and it moves and it's funny. And you're like, fuck yeah, I'm going to watch this all the time.

It's a really good show. And the way she gets into stand-up, like as a stand-up, is the least offensive I've ever seen of any of those things yeah because let me tell you something that shit is possible for a woman to be that funny just a housewife there's people out there that are like that oh yeah people like oh that's unrealistic that she would kill that is not unrealistic no there was a girl at the uh at the Vulcan in Austin and she was in the crowd and I was doing like a Q&A thing at the end of my set yeah and She she said asked something about how do you get into stand-up?

And she said and I go are you thinking about doing stand-up? I'm like you should do it She was I'm funny as fuck. I go come up here right now I go come up here right now, and she got on stage And she was a little drunk and it wasn't the worst, but it was funny that she did it. So then a week, two weeks later, maybe it was longer than that. Maybe it was like a month later. I'm on stage and I see her again. And I don't remember how it came up.

And I said, do you want to come up here and do stand up? And she said yes. And she went up again and she had prepared and she had notes and she fucking killed. I mean, fucking killed. And she didn't just fucking kill. She fucking killed after me. Like I had done an hour of standup. Oh, wow, man. And then I'm doing Q and a, and then she goes up and here comes the amuse bouche. It was real. Like I was like, this is like a real Mrs. Maisel. Like that's a possible thing for a girl or for anybody. Iel like that's a possible thing for a girl well I'm for anybody anybody yeah, yeah, I never did stand up that word funnier than me that funnier than most of my friends

Yeah, I think most my funniest friends are not actually like in entertainment like that Yeah, they're these snipers man like every single day at any given moment They're about to say something something's about to come out of their mouth, and everyone's going to be like, bah! Yes. And they're not like, you know, they're... Regular people. Yeah. That's why they're so funny.

Yeah. Because they're not trying to perform. They're just actually being themselves, which is funny, and they enjoy being funny. Well, but absolutely. And I would also add, though, that how cool of you to give this cool girl a bit of a spotlight to give that and the encouragement that you gave her and that she would take that. I mean, that goes a long way. When Joe Rogan is saying, you got something there. Go work on that.

She does, you know. It was fun. She had a great sense of humor. And, like, she was fun at, like, doing banter, you know. And so when she went up and did it, I was like, fuck, yeah. She fucking killed. Like, that woman 100% could be a professional comic. If she dedicated herself to it, 100% she could do it.

And that's like a Mrs. Maisel type character. Like I've seen people like that before. I used to work for a guy who was a private investigator. His name is Dave Dolan. And he was one of the funniest fucking human beings I've ever met in my life. Like he needed a driver, really. He lost his license drinking and driving. And so he put an ad in the paper for a private investigator's assistant.

And I needed a job while I was doing stand-up. Oh, no shit. Yeah. So I became this guy's driver. And so I hung out with him. And he was a private investigator. How long did you work for him? I think it was at least six months because I forget how long his driver's license was suspended for was that a trip or what bro it was the best like you're literally just on a case

all the time all the time yeah we're on cases all day I got to see how they catch people most of the time it was people that were cheating on insurance companies. Sure, yeah. Like, say if you got hurt, you would- Workman's comp, that kind of stuff. Yeah, the guys were working under the table, and so they would take photos of them

and catch them lying and stuff like that. But there was one guy that his wife was getting plowed by this bodybuilder. Oh, that's fun. And he kept wanting my friend Dave to take pictures.

He'll say, listen, you sick fuck. You know what the fucking deal is. You know what the guy's doing. We're done here. I'm not going to fucking take pictures you weirdo. This guy fucking your girl. You need to take those pictures.

I like that he has no standards. He's not just going to go and hand that. Dude, he was hilarious. And he never did stand up. If that guy ever went on stage, he would have fucking murdered from the moment he went up there. was just like this really funny irish guy from boston just fucking funny all the time yeah he was the guy that like when you're eating dinner he was the one who would crack in with something and everybody would be slapping the table yeah yeah he was just an animal but there's also i guess you know, you have to have some kind of inherent confidence and also insanity to go up and do stand up and just, you know, be there working without a net and just literally saying, hey, this is me.

And these are my words that I think are funny. I hope you do, too. I mean, that that's so sometimes even very, very, very funny people have put into that spotlight. They're not always necessarily totally capable, I guess, but yeah, it's well, it's, it's a skill and you got to learn how to do it. But the thing is like, some people really can't ever do it. But if you can do that, like what that girl did when she went on stage at my show, or you could do what Mrs. Maisel does in that that show you could actually do stand-up It's just a matter of like learning the rest of it like have it was like it becomes more comprehensive, right? Like what are my bits supposed to be about are they just being silly? Oh, yeah say something

What am I like sacrificing funny to try to make myself seem smart? And there's a lot of like weird games you play with your mind to try to get the material, right? But the point is like that show is like one of the best shows ever for stand-up Because it really did a great job of capturing the time. It really did a great job of capturing Lenny Bruce Oh, he's so good. Yeah, so good and that who's the gentleman that plays lady Bruce Luke Luke Kirby, I think it's Luke Kirby. I could be totally totally wrong let's find out if I'm mangling this I'm so sorry because he does a really good job

he's so good man really good job like it's so spot on yeah you believe it yeah yeah I love

I love stand up comedy I've been Luke Kirby nailed it there you go Lukey boy and he looked very much like

Lenny Bruce oh yeah he's really got the mannerisms down I remember watching and rehearsing like listening to old Lenny Bruce and like just trying he's really got the mannerisms down. I remember watching and rehearsing, like listening to old Lenny Bruce and like just trying to find that rhythm

and the cadence and stuff. And he's so good. I mean, everybody in the cast is so good. That time is a strange time. Standup by itself is a very strange thing because it's a lot of the old standup doesn't work anymore because it's just, you already know those things. Like they're not they're not

shocking they're you know like these are all like but it's because the envelope has been pushed so far i mean the envelope is off the edge at this point as far as what is comedic material and what you know what roads can be crossed and all that jazz for sure but lenny was the first guy to push it lenny was the first guy to really like push the envelope He was arrested like multiple times so did Carlin. Yeah. Oh, yeah Oh man, Carl was great. Carl was great. But so those those guys, I mean, that's why the envelope got moved It's because these guys were constantly moving it forward and forward before them No one even did that kind of comedy comedy was all just jokes. Yeah, it was all yuck yuck stuff Yeah, yeah, like that like the hacks that she goes and sees when she's waiting to get a spot.

Exactly. Exactly. That was well represented, too. And then the hunger and trying to make it and all that stuff, it seemed realistic. Yeah. It was good. It's a good show. And Rachel's fantastic.

She's so good. She's really good. And she's a lovely person. Can imagine. She must be. They're all excellent. Who's that good. And she's a lovely person. Can imagine. She must be. No one's that good an actor. I don't know. Some people might be.

They might be. Hollywood's full of a lot of interesting deceit too, bro. I know. It is. Yeah. And sometimes we get to watch it on trial. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.

How wild is that they had a relationship trial? Like this is who was more fucked up in the relationship. Let's show the whole world. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how I feel about it. Like, there's a part of me that just wishes that nobody would really care about any of that drama as it unfolds, because it's not pertinent

to anybody's life, really, or making the world a better place. Who gets paid for the advertising money from that trial? There must have been a lot of it. Who gets the cut of the YouTube time? Was it all YouTube? I don't know. I mean, but a lot of it is available on YouTube. I mean, was it available for free when it came out? I think the people making the videos are making money. I feel like I saw an article that said someone's making like 60 grand a month making reaction videos to the trial or something. Just reaction videos of the trial?

Or showing it or highlights. Everybody wants to know what everybody else thinks about it. The trial is a perfect thing to have a reaction video because there's so many moments in that trial. Certainly, certainly. But I think things like that, though, ultimately, I don't know, man. I feel like it's making us less empathetic ultimately it is it is making we all get to look at these people literally you know like you're saying like that they're having a a marital dispute we're all getting brought in

on their non not nonsense their their shit their traumas all that stuff and everyone just gets to sit around eating popcorn and judging the entire fiasco because it's entertainment now. It's like everything is content and everything is entertainment. But the more we do that kind of stuff, I do feel like we're pulling farther apart

from being able to look at either her or him and say, you both have issues and you both need to work on some shit. And however the jury and all that founded i ultimately i saw little bits and pieces it seemed like he was more in the right than she was i would have gone with that too but the point is they're still human beings both of them at the end of the day and they're just a circus when when we see it like that seemingly i think he wanted the circus because the circus exposes the truth. I think that was the only way to expose the truth was to get her to talk about stuff on camera

and he felt like she would kind of fall apart. Certainly, but I don't think that that could have been done just in a courtroom without it airing to the rest of the world. All that stuff would have been said on some cameras that are recording in that room. Are we trying to pretend that the jury didn't know how the rest of the world felt? I know.

It's so ridiculous, dude. It's so ridiculous. In that case. How do you keep jurors away from anything anymore? How do you keep them away from their phones? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Do we give up on that? On jurors being influenced by the outside world? No. That's still very much the law, I believe. But wasn't it at a certain point in time that they were restricted? Like they weren't allowed to watch media or something like that? They were sequestered?

Yeah. Is that still going on or do they get to go home? It depends on the trial, I think so, yeah. Like in the O.J. Simpson trial, all those guys got sequestered for a long fucking time. Oh, man. It was not ideal for any of them. And after all that, they still come up with a fucked up verdict. I mean, I agree.

I don't see him as being innocent in that at all. But, you know, Rodney King had just gotten beaten on a freeway, and there was a lot of anger and a lot of pain and frustration. And, again, not that that should make the other right or whatever but it's still just i think we got to come back and be like you know i don't know no we're humans you're you're right we're like everyone who's mocking the trial me included is not being empathetic to the fact that these are two human beings but there's something about liars in particular that people when they're lying and they are doing it to try to damage

someone else yeah oh it's horrible it's one of the creepiest so there's there's a certain amount of signaling that everybody's doing by not being empathetic because it is such a public thing there's certain amount of signaling that we're doing to each other saying hey that is fucking bullshit always and everybody kind of agrees. And then it's kind of better for people. It's better for people to see that on display and see people's reaction to it and make people think about what is it like if someone lies about something just to try to damage someone. Yeah. Well, listen, I 100% believe that all lies should be exposed. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We should be able to talk about all that shit for sure.

But I think, yeah, hopefully it can be done where we all get the example. But we're still nice to each other. Yeah. We're still radically loving each other. It's possible. Yeah. It is possible. It's possible for people to be way nicer to each other.

But that stuff's not good, right? No. And people, they're still responsible. I think that we can both acknowledge that, as crazy as it might sound, but no one's at fault, but everyone's responsible. You get programmed by your parents who are programmed by their parents who are programmed by their parents. I mean, it's generational trauma. And it's not just your parents who were programmed by their parents who were programmed by their parents and so on i mean it's generational trauma and it's not just your parents sometimes it's other people in your family or your community or your society or your country or your faith or whatever it is but all that stuff is the coding you get as a little soul growing up and so that's how you

behave by and large i mean there's like psychopaths and sociopaths that might be born with a little like physiological you know something wrong but all of us are nature and nurture like through and through. So, yeah, that's the determinism perspective, right? That life has kind of led you to this moment and yes, but don't really have a lot of control over it. Well, we we we have to forgive ourselves for not knowing what we didn't know. Right. Right. We've all done stupid shit throughout our lives. I was one of the biggest things that was destroying me before I went to life saving therapy. I did. I didn't know I, how much I hated myself and my self-talk was garbage the

way that I really, Oh yeah, man. It was so bad. A beautiful, tall, handsome fella. Why would you have bad safe talk? You've got a wonderful personality. Well, thank you. Your self-talk should be great. I appreciate that. Well, well, okay. But I, again, I didn't know what I didn't know. And what I didn't know was that my whole life, my parents, my mom and stepdad particularly were very abusive, psychologically abusive, uh, types of people, you know, because they were also super psychologically abused by their respective parents. Right. So, but their, your parents' voice more often than not, in my humble opinion, the voice that you have for yourself, that's you just echoing the way they talked to you. So that's why no matter what I may look like or what I've accomplished in my life.

And even up to the point at 37, when I moved out here to Austin, I had this whole breakdown. Like even up to that point, like I still felt like I was failing my life entirely. I Even up to that point, I still felt like I was failing my life entirely. I had accomplished so many things, and I still felt like I was failing because my self-talk was garbage. So did you feel like you were failing in looking at your career, or did you think you were failing at life? Everything, all things. All things?

Yeah, I was 37. But your career was going well. To some, looking from the outside, it'd be like, that guy's got it all or whatever. Absolutely. Totally. Which makes you feel even fucking worse because now you feel like a sad, I was in major depression and anxiety. And I'm like, why can't I love my, you know, why can't I be happy and love myself wherever

I'm at right now? And then you go, oh yeah. And you have all this stuff. You shit head. Yeah, shit head. And then you go, Oh yeah. And you have all this stuff. You shit head. Like, and then you just start shitting on yourself. I mean, it's,

it's, it's horrible downward spiral that you go down, you know, but that's why that's thinking, thinking. That's why you got to go to therapy and, and have professionals just walk you through like, Hey,

Hey, let's help you see yourself, the world and how you fit into it more clearly. Let's do that. Let's unpack these ideas. Let's talk about trauma. Let's be able to tell the person, like, hey, it's not your fault. You're responsible 100%.

No matter what happens in your life, if you've done it, you're responsible for that. But we shouldn't, you know, so we should hold everybody accountable and responsible while simultaneously not dehumanizing them right at the same time that's that's the the the push and the pull i think and it's just easy we all want to dehumanize because we've all been taught in other us and them our whole lives our nations our tribes our faiths or whatever i mean all of these things are i mean fuck man we're so divided the country the world is so so so divided right now. And fear is not going to – we can only love our way to a better future. We can't. Yeah, we're not going to –

We can't hate our way there. Animosity our way to enlightenment. No, we're not. It's not going to happen. And even if we can build some kind of weird dystopian future, whatever that fucking is, we're all going to be that much more miserable because what are we going to – we're going to save the planet but hate each other in the future while we're on that. No, we got to fucking figure it out.

We got to figure out how to coexist genuinely. But I think all of that comes down to initially self-love and then being able to love somebody. Because now, like, you know, in a plain analogy, you put your own mask on before helping other people with their masks. A lot of my life, I was trying to go love everybody. I'm just trying to get everybody's back. And I'm fucking suffocating and dying and falling on the cabin floor until I went to therapy. And I was like, oh shit, I don't even understand how to love myself, how to take care of myself, really like invest in myself. I had in moments throughout my life, but if you don't value yourself, you're not going to invest in yourself.

We always hear those stories about the person who's doing really well, and then they decide to take their own life. And it's so baffling to us. Oh, man, yeah. And I think for some, even if they're doing really well, they compare themselves to people who are doing better, and they always feel bad. Yeah.

Like we've told the story about this guy Richard Jenny, who's like a really huge comedian in the 80s and 90s and uh he wound up killing himself and he always wanted to be like jim carrey he wanted to be a movie star it just never really happened but for as for comics he was like one of the best comics alive like he was a guy would comics would go and sit in the back room to watch his set and you'd leave going fuck he. God damn, that guy's good. But that wasn't enough. For whatever chemical imbalance he had, whatever bad self-talk, whatever life trauma and whatever he was going through, it was just too much. Well, a lot of people, I mean, genuinely, a lot of people are programmed with some form of you're not good enough programming.

some form of you're not good enough programming. I take it, having listened to many of your conversations, you're somebody who has always had a really innate self-worth about you. You invest in yourself on a high rate and have been doing it for a really long time. Myself, lots of other people I know, we're not, there's that self, if you are still always chasing

because nothing is ever ultimately a good enough thing to finally say i accomplished enough to silence the voices in my head that are telling me i'm not good enough yeah that's a you'll be forever chasing that and seemingly that's probably what happened to him he was something happened in his growth either as a child or even later on as an adult or both or whatever and that was something that he could never get he could never get that monkey off his back I can relate to that yeah I think sometimes people also get in these patterns of thinking like really negative patterns of thinking and they can't get off the tracks like they're stuck in a groove the way they think

about things they're always thinking that everything's going bad for them they're always thinking everything's everything's gonna be worse in the future and everything's falling apart and they can't get it out of their head they can never go look on the bright side it's like it's almost like it's not available to them anymore well but that but there's a lot of evidence to the fact that that's really neuroplasticity so when traumas or when memories or whenever they, you know, those galvanize in our head, well, now it's like a, it's a circuit.

It's a, it's a route. And so when you like, uh, you know, putting a deeper groove into a record, you're just, the more you think about that same trauma or that same thing that's holding you back, the more it's going to hold you back. Right. Uh, do you know Dr. Uh, Dr. Joe Dispenza? You ever heard of Dr. Joe Dispenza? Uh, Not really.

He's like... I think I've seen him on Instagram. Yeah, but he's like... I might even follow him. I think he was a chiropractor, doctor, but then ultimately he's really been kind of leading the charge for, I don't know, like energy connectivity in your body, your ability to think your

way to a better life ultimately because our our thoughts are so powerful that they can't affect our bodies this is kind of you know the the world that he's into hmm but I think but I do think there's a lot world makes me super suspicious oh really yeah anytime people start talking about like manifesting the world through the idea man I think it's so real What do you think is real? Do you think well I think prayer is Manifestation I think manifestation is prayer I think that that is a real thing and it's not I don't think it's just a fluke that people have been doing it for so

so so so so long and Feel something very deep through it. You know what I mean? I think it's a method to achieve focus, for sure. And I think one of the things about prayer is prayer is very similar to meditation in that they're both, like, really good. They're both really good for you. Meditation, where you're literally thinking about nothing, and prayer, where you're praising God

or thinking about the energy of the universe or whatever it is. What you're doing is you're putting out gratitude. You're putting out this feeling of appreciation. And all of those things are really good ideas. Absolutely. But that, by doing that, I mean, the thought exercise is, by doing that, you change your aura. You change your energy.

You are also rewriting the neuroplasticity in your mind to break those habits and those cycles that have just been stuck there. I think you definitely do something. Something's going on. I don't know if it's your aura, though. I don't know. When people start talking auras and chakras, I'm like, slow down. Slow down.

Are we talking nonsense? I know. I mean, listen. I'm not sure. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. But it's no more nonsense than anything else that we think is probably true. Like, I don't know, man. And it's probably really also puts you in a positive state of mind, which can be very effective at improving your life. in this physical world, I fully believe that there's a soul in us. And that is something that

is other than physical. And whatever that is operates in a slightly different way. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think there's something in there too. I wonder what it is. You know, what we're calling the soul. It's like consciousness that's untethered from language and untethered from life experiences, whatever your essence is. And then everything else you're doing, like we're talking about the way these ideas get sort of carved into your mind and how people can help you manipulate your mind to get rid of some of these bad ideas and bad self-talk. And it begs the question, like, what are we really?

Some weird combination of life experiences and noises that we can make with our mouths. But at the center of it all, there's a thing. Like, we all believe that we're, like, navigating through words and having conversations through language. But what is we? We are using this language. But what is we? We are using this language.

But what is that thing? That collective soul, you mean? The thing that you get to when you get to, if you could erase all the bullshit from people and just get down to you. Yeah, the essence. What is that? I think that's a soul. And more specifically.

It might be. I do think it is, but I think that that's life energy, soul, but that is connected to God energy. Like we are all little conduits of life. The only actual miracle in the universe that we know of right now, this place right here, this little blue dot spinning ball of mud that we're all on together. That's a pretty spectacular thing. And I think all of that is just God energy. The universe, you know, people call people are constantly like God, the universe. What I'm like, I'm not trying to even define it for anybody other than just saying,

absolutely, that is, I think absolutely, that is a thing. And absolutely, that thing, I think, operates in love. I think that when we, when we're going after love and going after love and loving people, we're walking closer to God. That seems to only work right here with us. It doesn't seem to work with any other animals. Other animals, it doesn't seem to matter at all. It's just tooth and claw. Okay, listen, listen.

But isn't that interesting? It is, but I've thought about this. I think that, look, we're very special apes, right? Somehow, whether it was eating a bunch of mushrooms and we grew a brain or whatever the heck it is, bro. But we are very, we're called out. We're a special animal, right? That shouldn't give us this cocky arrogance

like this is all ours, like we've been doing for so long. We have to be in homeostasis with the rest of the world and creation but we're fucking special man yeah we're weird we're we're super weird yeah but i would say but check this out though like nature is metal the instagram i think you follow them too they're one of my favorites they're so good i tell everybody in fact particularly i tell like my vegan friends and all that stuff they're like you, you know, animal, animal. Like, I got you. I'm like, go follow that account and tell me that we are somehow these horrible creatures that are going and mowing down all these animals when they are ripping each other's limbs off. Literally, it's so satisfying.

Anyway, but Nature's Metal, that's a great example of, yeah, this is the wild world out there. So what about that? How do you explain that well i think that perhaps a lot of other species of animal just we evolved super fast into whatever our reasoning the fact that we even ask why right like all that we have that's we're set apart i don't think those animals have literally just evolved or matured long enough to be able to have some of that but i will will say this, and this is, hear me out, hear me out. I fully believe, this is how much I believe in the power of love. I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. Dogs are the greatest animal. I know you love your dog. I love my dogs. They're amazing. They're the best. I don't understand cat people. I've had cats.

They're cute and cuddly, but they're selfish little fuckers who don't need you ultimately and will eat your decomposing body the second you die. Dogs will wait at least a couple of weeks. But dogs are amazing. How the fuck do we have this amazing species of animal that exists right now that when we met it, it would have fucking killed us as a wolf right right and why what has made the dog not just domesticated but what has made the dog love and it's humans loving the dog we have not we have loved dogs more than we've loved any other

animal on this earth i mean i think yeah think. Yeah. I would say. Probably. And I think because of that, you see dogs becoming better versions of themselves that aren't so wild, that don't want to just go and fucking kill. Not that that stuff's still not in there somewhat, but this is my theory. I really believe it. And I think that the more we would do that,

I mean, also, have you ever seen videos of animal um animal sanctuaries where they have all kinds of different animals like owls and cats and tigers and little you know like uh ducks and dogs and they're like best friends they're best fucking friends these little teeny dogs and these huge tigers or this a cat and an owl in a tree like they would be sworn enemies and on any other day like this is not should not happen But because they have been taken care of literally in this beautiful sanctuary by human beings that are loving them all the time Could that perhaps then spill out and be like oh that is how we do that?

Yeah, but that's Siegfried and Roy didn't that put a damper in that idea? Listen I Boy, didn't that put a damper in that idea? Listen, I'm not saying that it's bulletproof, Joe. I'm not saying it's bulletproof. We've loved a lot of human beings and they still do horrible things. You know what I mean? One of the things that Mike Tyson told me is that tigers only like one person. If you have a tiger, if you have a tiger as a pet, they only like one person. They don't like all the other people.

Oh. And that becomes a real problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That would be a real damper they only like a pool party they only listen to you so like he had a tiger didn't want to listen to anybody else and everybody else was terrified of this fucking tiger and mike's walking around with it with a chain yeah in his underwear i mean but the point is it they don't give a fuck about love i i understand what you're saying with love I understand what you're saying but I understand what you're saying too theoretically just theoretically there's got to be

something to the power of that that we have taken so much time and so much energy and so much effort and we treat them with I mean dude humans love dogs more than they love other human beings so what are we even fucking talking about like how often you're like sitting in an outdoor

cafe or something like somebody's walking by with a dog or you're walking your dog and there's somebody sitting there and it's not high they don't look at they look at you for half a second they go oh my god what's its name they go straight down to the dog they're asking the breed the age where is it from what is it like to do. And those all your fucking dogs, happy, hobbies and everything. And that's the thing of the person that's got the dog. And you just go, oh, thank you so much. Have a great day. Because all you wanted to do was be with their dog.

Dogs get all the love. And look at them. They are just like love in an animal. Most of them. Yeah. But if you let them go and they have to fend for themselves, they turn right back into dogs and they get sketchy

and they even kill people sometimes. Certainly. But again, I think these are more exceptions to the rule and not that... For dogs? Yeah. And by the way,

if people are not loved in a good way for a long time, they regress and we become far more animalistic. But you don't want to domesticate everything right I'm not I know I'm just bringing it up for the point of I think love is that powerful I genuinely love is definitely that powerful for us the question the funny thing is this is just I'm just fucking around but this is a thing that always

comes up with people when they want to say like love is the answer like not in the jungle. It's tooth and claw over most of the world. But we have gotten to a place where love really can do amazing and very beneficial things to our species. Because we've figured out a way to get out of the wild. I don't think you can ever domesticate the wild. You'll never have a world where those things aren't eating each other. That's literally the engine that powers the machine.

I totally, listen, like I said, I'm just throwing out ideas. I'm not even disagreeing with you. But I would say, though, that in response to that, A, absolutely noted, but I, what if, what if this simulation that we're in, this game that we're all playing, life, what if there actually is an end

winning goal, which is that we all choose love and not fear. That we all go this way. And if we all do, if we get our meter all the way up there and get everybody on board with like, let's be leading in love and not in fear, not in the fear and the anger and the hate and all the things that come from that. But we actually lead this way. What if that starts energetically, literally changing the world in a way where I'm not saying we're all going to be hanging out with Tiger. I know what you're saying.

I know what you're saying. I just think that literally the energy of the world would change 100% because love is an energy and fear is an energy. Well, if you just signed this bill to legalize mushrooms, we can make this a fact, Zach. That's why I'm here. Oh bro. I hope, I hope it does. If they did, it would change the whole world. Yeah. I think it's really wonderful what's going on with psychedelics and treating people for depression and anxiety. And it's incredible. And it's way long what's going on with psychedelics and treating people for depression and anxiety and yeah it's incredible that is incredible and it's way long overdue the fact that all of these drugs were put you know schedule one and like we couldn't do any research we couldn't figure anything we would be so much farther ahead on all of the cbd thc psilocybin

mdma whatever like all of these ketamine things that are literally helping people right now could have been helping people for so long Also, we would have real studies on what the negative Consequences are because right now it's like you're you're counting on people what happens Oh, you get a little bit of a hangover afterwards. That's it. Like what does that mean? What's happening to my head? Why is it hurt? Yeah, like you know, like we know about alcohol why because it's legal We've had a long time to study. Which is, by the way, the worst drug.

It's the worst. I mean, I love me some tequila, but it literally is one of the worst things you can put in your body. It's definitely not good for you. No. But it's just weird that we're still accepting this strange situation where a person tells another person what they can and can't do. Sure. Even if the original person telling the other person what they can and can't do has no experience

in that thing. Certainly. And they have this distorted idea. Yeah. If you talk to a lot of people that are legislators or people writing laws, they don't know jack shit about psychedelics. But that's case in point. That's leading in fear.

Yes. It's leading in ignorance for sure. Sure. But I think that's all tied to the same place. I think ignorance comes out of that fear ultimately. You know what I mean? You're afraid of whatever. I mean, pick your poison.

But those ladies and gentlemen who are legislators, who are still operating in whatever their fear is, that's what they're choosing. Instead of, I mean, look, Rick Perry, he was a conservative dude here in Texas. He's now, like, he's a huge proponent of psychedelic um work with anxiety and depression and all this stuff because i think it affected him personally in his life not maybe not him but somebody in his life so it it changed him and then instead of leading in this fear that he may have

led him before now he's leading in the love of hey actually this can help people and i and we need it to help people yeah it's really beneficial for soldiers, really beneficial for people that have been through extreme trauma, car accidents, assaults, that kind of shit. It helps a lot of people, changes your perspective. Is this coffee? Yes, it is. Would you like some? Yes, thank you. But it's a tool. It's like any other tool. The tool itself is not evil. No.

The problem is people abusing that tool. No, people. Exactly. Exactly. Just like alcohol, just like everything else. There's so many things that are occasionally beneficial, but can be ultimately detrimental if you overdo it. Well, 100%. I mean, look, man, God has given us so many cool things on this planet. We just, as human beings, we get crooked. And so then we make it crooked. But the thing, I mean, look at opium. One of the greatest pain relievers that's, I mean, basically still is, right? All of the synthetics are all basically still being made to simulate something like opium.

It just grows out of the ground. And we can use that to help people if they have amputations and all the ways that we've been using it but if all of a sudden you're super smacked out all the time because you're hooked on some fucking you know opioids and the in that crisis and the fentanyl crisis and all and why why money all money yeah all money and the problem is it's also they're illegal and when they're illegal that means you can sell them under prescription medication yeah so a doctor can prescribe you for opiates and then you could have a legitimate use for it because your back does hurt and then you can get them yeah but that's the only way to get them unless you're out there buying them on the free market and if you're just buying them on the free market no one can sell them to you unless they're drug dealers And the drug dealers are all the ones making money and they're not paying any fucking taxes

And if you keep it illegal, I bet the same amount of people would be using drugs I bet if we knew, with education I think we can lower it But I bet the same amount of people would be doing drugs if we just legalized everything I bet it would even out. I bet it would actually drop a little. They have done studies. I mean, there are some cases already in Colorado. I read an article not too long ago that Colorado's marijuana usage has dropped.

Yeah. Because it's too fucking strong. Have you tried some of that shit? Colorado's not fucking around, man. No, no, no. Colorado has some preposterous marijuana because they were first to the game. I know. Warren Buffett invested in grow ops there.

Yeah. He invested in warehouses that they would put these, because a lot of them, they grow them indoors. Oh, yeah. Almost all of them. I feel like I've been to some really interesting grow houses before yeah oklahoma actually has um it's medically um cool there i think they're going to be working toward making it recreational as well which i hope they do i think it would be great for the for the state for taxes for like all of the things that could be

done with that and you know allowing people to have more liberty in that regard, because I think we ought to have that. I think it's preposterous that we're all allowed to drink booze, which has some of the worst ultimate effects in our bodies and the decision making that we do. And yet these other things are still seen with so much stigma. It's like, guys, come on again, choosing fear, fear, fear, fear. And it's like, guys, some of this stuff is really good for you. It's really good for you. Yeah. And the amount of money that could be generated for tax revenue too. Colorado had some crazy tax on weed. It was like, I don't remember what it was, but it was very high. I'm like, good, good. Still cheap. It's still cheaper than alcohol. And maybe that money will

go to good. Maybe we could actually use that money. Let's put it in education, put it in cleaning streets, put it in like, fuck yeah. It's, you know, it should be legal. And if you can find a benefit. But in the beginning, one of the things that happened with the Colorado people was they weren't letting them use credit cards.

Well, they're still doing that in California. That's wild. Yeah, you can only use a debit card. I Well, they're still doing that in California. That's wild. Yeah, you can only use a debit card. I bought weed with a credit card before in California. Yeah, 100%. I bought it at a dispensary. Are you sure that wasn't a debit card that looked like a credit card? No, no, no.

It was a credit card for sure. When was that? I started buying weed from a dispensary in the 90s. It was probably like 98 or something like that. And they took a credit card? Yes, they took a credit card. Interesting. Yeah.

And then that was the Inglewood Wellness Center. We used to have to go to the hood to get our weed because that was like one of the only places where you could buy weed. I don't remember legally yeah i definitely know i bought credit card because it was medical at that point yeah it was medical at that gotcha gotcha so we used to go down there to get to get weed but it was uh super sketched the situation was super sketched because everybody knew that they were selling weed there and everybody knew there was a lot of cash in there. Oh, yeah. And so one of the guys that I used to buy from wound up getting shot. Fuck.

Yeah, he got robbed in the store and shot. Oh, fuck. Did he live? I believe he lived. Oh, fuck. Yeah, I had stopped going there. But he was the dude that was, like, putting his neck out in the 90s, you know, when it was like, is this really legal?

Because like I know a guy, my friend Todd McCormick got arrested for growing weed, growing medical weed in accordance to California state law. But he got arrested on federal charges and they wouldn't even let him bring up the fact that it was medical weed that was legal in the state of California because in federal law, there is no such thing as legal. Oh, that's right. Federally was still illegal. So you couldn't even bring it up.

So they just, yep. So his trial consisted of them saying, did you have weed? Yes. Did you sell weed? Yes. Okay. You're guilty. And they put him in jail.

That is fucked up. And you literally were not allowed to bring up the fact that it was legal in california and that it was medical marijuana for people who have prescriptions yeah i had this one doctor that i was going to though he was crazy as fuck i went to him and then did he have a peg leg he was so nuts he had like all the new things like new gadgets you want to put like electrodes on your skin and so one day i went to him and he gives me this book i go what is this book and it's got like the twin towers on it he's like the towers were dissolved using tesla energy i go what he goes it's impossible to turn

concrete into dust the towers were dissolved using tesla energy i'm... Was that the last time you saw that doctor? That's the last time I saw that doctor. I was like, Jesus Christ. I saved the book. I saved the book, too. The book is so stupid. The book is so stupid, I pick it up every now and then and go, what the fuck is this? It's so wild. Tesla Energy.

That's a leap. Tesla was fucking dope, man. Tesla was dope. I literally think that guy is also a great example of somebody who was like in touch with understanding that was something going on yeah yeah but I think that's a part of being connected to that energy to that God energy I think you can tap into that kind of shit and I think Tesla absolutely was like that guy was next-level genius he believes he was getting signals yes that was one of the

things that he said that he believed he was getting signals from some other planet. Yeah. But I think that was God, though. Personally. It might have been. I mean, look, dude. It could be. It could have been an alien.

Who knows? No, I think that word, that word God, the problem is people think of the dude in the robe and the beard. Oh, I get that. I mean, look, I use it in a very general sense. I can tell. Yeah, yeah. I don't use it in a very general sense. I can tell.

Yeah, yeah. It's more just because, like it or lump it, it's the word that we all know that represents that concept. You know what I mean? Bill, it most certainly could be. All of your ideas could be coming from that sort of life force that created the universe. Because I've always said this, that the one thing that's weird about ideas is that it's the only way that things get made. So what is an idea? An idea is literally like a thing that enters into your mind and causes you to create things. Yeah.

Like if you were an alien thought, like an alien life form, and the way you made things work is you got into this creature's brain and you put thoughts in there as to what to do and what not to do and if you're nikola tesla they put thoughts in there about oh you need to fucking figure out how to just spray electricity through the air to everybody and sit under it i mean he was uh he was a guy that was constantly coming up with ideas and then through his ideas things get made Yeah, but it's like the idea. It's almost like a life form that forces itself. It's a creative thought It's a creative thought process and it's something that we don't see and I'm not that other animals aren't don't display some levels of creativity Because they do But by and large they're not sitting around being like, how do I make

my day easier? What could I do? You know, they're all just still living, by the way, until they're totally torn up by some predator or whatever, they're living pretty great lives. They're in constant state of like parasympathetic. Right. You know, they'll jump into sympathetic for moments at a time, like when you're hunting down an elk or whatever, like, and then they get,

and they're like, all right, come back to, back to life. Now I'm just going to go right back into chill. And I'm not worrying about my taxes. I'm not worrying about my relationships. I'm not worrying about work or anything else. It's either I'm worrying about surviving or I'm living my life.

Yep. You know, it's fascinating. But I think with Tesla, yeah, I think that creative, creative thinking, which seems to be very, you know, not singularly, but almost singularly human being, that is a difference in our, these crazy, amazing, special brains that we have. And I think that, yeah, they tap into something greater.

It definitely is very capable, the human being, the human animal, is very capable of making new things. And new things all come out of ideas. Yeah. I mean, we like to think that ideas are our own. But imagine if they really are just out there and you're tuning into them. And it's just a matter of like sitting down and clearing your schedule to tune into them. Or occasionally driving your car and you tune into them. Yeah. I mean, that's a meditative state essentially, you know, I've absolutely had so many, when I, when I was first starting in acting, I grew up in Ventura,

California and about an hour, you know, Northwest from LA and the first three years I commuted down to LA for all my auditions. So I was on the one-on-one all the time. There were so many mornings where I'd get in my car. I would start the day with like a prayer or something like that. I'm just driving. And I would forget to turn my radio on. I would just be lost in thought. And not only does the trip, you know, you're driving some long distance, but you know the distance.

And it feels like you blink and 30 miles went by. You have no idea. You don't remember seeing any of that at all. It's like that meditative state that you find yourself in oh you know maybe in in some ways it's like a a you know a version of a not as great version of as your your um century yeah your float tank yeah because your your brain is an autopilot right you're driving a stretch you've driven all the time you're totally on autopilot you're good and you're and now you're just wandering in thought and you do you you tap into a lot of cool things that way i think and that's meditation in general you know prayer

and meditation yeah even it's the same as going for a walk right when people go for what's one of the things that writers love to do they they like to uh write and then go for a walk and bring like a tape recorder and just like oh yeah to just record their ideas as they're walking because sometimes just the process of walking around after writing it's like a meditative state yeah or also do you ever find yourself pacing like on a phone call or something like that yeah i think that's there's a similar thing in that too it's like you're you're focusing so much on whatever business is going on on that phone call yeah and you're just putting yourself in this kind of like autopilot of a move yeah yeah

well i feel like i talk better when i do that you know like uh like i get a little bit of circulation sure like if i'm just like if it's a very important conversation i'm not going to sit down if i'm yeah yeah i'm gonna get out 100 yeah you're gonna walk around you're pacing around but and again people have been doing that shit forever forever i mean pacing is like an absolute thinkers kind of a thing you're you're trying to solve some shit Yeah, that's what's so fascinating about the human animal, right? It's like we are so many different things. We're we're Biological, but we're also intellectual we're creative and loving and silly and mean and Then we're all like living in this physical shell and how well you take care of your physical shell depends on how the physical shell feels and treats you

If you abuse it and treat it like shit, then you have this fucking achy jacked up Sloppy thing that doesn't have any air in it Yeah, you know you just tired all the time Yeah, or if you take care of it you feel good, and you can make other people feel good, too Yeah, and it's like we we're these weird piles of ideas and life experiences. And we're all just trying to sort through things in real time. And then there's people that like take advantage of that.

And they'll try to be mean to you if you don't think the way they think. And they'll use excuses as to why they're being a fucking asshole. Totally. Choosing fear. Yeah. But it's just being mean. But you're being mean on the side of good. But again, a fucking asshole. Totally. Choosing fear. Yeah, but it's just being mean, but you're being mean on the side of good. But again, that's still, yes, 100%,

but that's still them ultimately, they're fearing the other side of the conversation because their ego is kicking on, their fight or flight is literally kicking in. They're like, I don't know enough about whatever this is that I'm talking about to be able to even allow for that conversation to come in because it could totally destroy the scaffolding of what my identity is pinned on. There's a lot of that.

There's so much of that. And so we have to be empathetic to people in that regard and be like, okay, I understand why you're being so cross. I understand why you're pushing back so much. But ultimately, if we can point out to everybody, hey, work on yourself, love yourself so that you feel like you can invest in yourself. And as you love yourself better, you'll recognize how to love other people outside of you better because in order to love yourself, you got to give yourself a fucking break, man. You got to give yourself a break and we don't give anybody a break. Nobody's given anybody a fucking break anymore. Like guys, we're human beings. We're fucked up. We're all a little broken and messed

up. And if we can't just acknowledge that and see each other, you know, it doesn't mean again, it doesn't mean that people aren't assholes on the other side and doing things that need to have boundaries. Loving is not just liking times a thousand. To like something is to like something. But to love something means just recognizing the miracle in the soul across from you. Recognizing that they exist and they are worthy of existing. They are worthy of being in this space that they're inhabiting, even if they're a fucking asshole. And then, and then having boundaries with those people so that, you know, it's, it's not a matter of just giving people say like, how do I forgive this person and make sure that

they don't do this to me again? I go, no, no forgiveness. Isn't just being like, and we're cool. That's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is recognizing that they didn't do anything to you personally they did something out of they're acting out of their shitty trauma the their programming more often than not you know i just also think we have to like kind of reward an ethic of trying to be nice and yeah sort of do our best to not reward people that are just constantly being shitty yeah because there's just so many people that are getting attention from being shitty constantly being shitty they're just putting this thing out there it's like all right that's really what you want to do you're you're putting out this negative energy like constantly and you're complaining about things and you're

finding reasons reasons to be mean about people to shit on people because they're terrified well, they're broken Yeah, but they're deep down. They're very afraid of whatever it is on the other side of that conversation They're just terrified and by the way, that's on both sides of the aisle. Oh, yeah this side, you know Terrified of these ideas this side terrified of these not being able to just come together man. I wish we had I wish we had some like Jedi Council of just the smartest, deepest, most enlightened, deeply empathetic, genius people, symposium, whatever, 20 people. And just allow them to get together and all just agree on like can we just decide some of these things that we're all fighting about? Can we just come together and make some really neutral ground so we can do this? Do you know of anyone that you would trust to be on that council? Like how many people do you think would have to be on that?

I don't know. I mean, again, let's say nine people. Should we say nine people? Okay. Let's say nine, nine people. Do you know of nine people whose opinion you would value so highly that they wouldn't say something so egregiously stupid that you'd go, what the fuck, man? You know? Yeah.

Not like, see, these people can't be like politicians. They have to be chosen. No, no, no, no, no, no. They can't be picked. Politicians. Oh, man, it just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart how fucked up our entire political system is. It's so sad. It is so fucking sad. It's so weird. It's so weird. And it's so, there's so bought, everyone's bought, the lobbyists bought everything

and everyone. And we're all just looking around being like, how is this all not working? It's because the fucking money guys just follow the goddamn money. Yeah. don't know i mean like the dalai lama you know like legitimately like i i don't know that he's you know he got canceled the dalai lama got canceled he was saying a bunch of sexist shit what yeah he was uh well here's the thing it was a while back let me remember what he was saying oh he was talking about how he doesn't uh he doesn't want to get married and he sees his friends that are all married and uh a lot of times they get divorced and they lose all their money and then this lady goes uh well sometimes the woman has her own money she makes her own money he goes yeah good one oh what? What? The Dalai Lama said that? Yes. Yes.

Oh, wow. Dalai Lama got jokes. Dalai Lama got comments he made in 2015 that if a female Dalai Lama were to replace him, that she must be very attractive. Otherwise, not so much use. Wow, Dalai. Hello, Dalai. He laughed. He laughed when asked if he understood why the response had offended women, saying,

if female Dalai Lama comes, then she should be more attractive. If female Dalai Lama, before putting on a face, I think, ugly face, people prefer not to see her that face. The Dalai Lama also said they had not given up hope of returning to Tibet. But there was another thing where he was doing an interview about that. And that's where he said, the woman would say, well, sometimes women have their own money. And he's like, oh, yeah, good one. Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. Actually, that brings me to another point, which is this council, these nine people, guess what?

They're all still going to have shit about them that somebody's not going to like, right? Because we're all humans. At the end of the day we've all got some weird baggage. We've all got something but that's why you have such an array and diversity of those people so that compensates for all of that stuff. So we give the Dalai Lama pass. Well

I get it. I don't know. So Dalai Lama. So we have nine people. We got Dalai Lama pass well I get it okay so Dalai Lama so we have nine people we got Dalai Lama yeah um Ted Nugent right no you know honestly man I I think one of the deepest thinkers that I've ever heard break down like human behavior uh and I don't know, just an understanding of all that stuff. And I think good, good wisdom along with it is Jordan Peterson. I think that he would be a person that I would trust.

I think that guy has a lot of integrity. And then, so I would, I would, that would be somebody too. But I also know Jordan has his own things that people have issues with. Like I get it. Nobody's perfect.

We're not going to find. He's kicked off Twitter right now. Cause he said something about Ellen page, uh, Elliot page called her Ellen page. Like, I think, I think that was the number one thing. The dead naming. Yeah. And it's sad, man. Cause again, it's like, there's a lot of fear and pain on and all that, all the sides of all that too. My friend, Brian Simpson had a very good thing to say about that. He was like, I come to you for like heavy duty intellectual shit. He goes,

not for this. Yeah, true. Yeah. This is not, this is like, yeah. Why are you getting offended?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, you don't need to get into all that. I mean, look, it's his life.

It's his Twitter or was his Twitter anyway. But that thing is like that transgender thing riles people up man that is one of the ones that riles people up like everybody's in favor of everybody doing whatever they want to do as long as it doesn't hurt anybody until it gets to gender and then people start getting weird they start thinking it's a mistake they start thinking why are a mistake. They start thinking, why are you doing that? They start thinking all kinds of things. It's like, we're so cool with people making all kinds of changes to their body.

Or like, no one's protesting fake boobs. No one. I mean, that would just be stupid. Well, it's one of the most preposterous things a human being has ever done. You open up a person's chest cavity and put bags of chemicals in there because they feel like real tits.

And everybody's like, yeah, that's what we do. It's totally normal. And all that's in response to what our beauty norms are ultimately. Well, it's a response to DNA. Your DNA wants you to see a small waist and big hips and big boobs so that you can feed and nourish the baby yeah but the beauty norms have also shifted a lot over the years too like there was there was a long stretch where like the the thicker the better like you know ladies and paintings and stuff like that like

because that what that meant you were wealthy that meant you had so much food and wealth and look at me you know like that that was totally a thing so i don't know right but they didn't have media the moment they had the ability to see different ones and figure out which ones they liked things got pretty standard there's like a certain form that is generally preferred to sure it's being most attractive but there's also people that have tastes like some guys who like you know this and some people like that like there's also people that have tastes like some guys who like, you know, this and some people like that. Like there's all sorts of different tastes. But when it comes to like like physical attraction, there's like a weird shape.

And you can manipulate a man's brain by altering your shape with bags of chemicals. Yeah. It's strange. It's very strange. And now they're doing it to their butts. They're doing stuff to their butts to make their butts fake. And it's just, it's a wild time. Because it's like, whatever that is, is you're playing with the geometry that's inside a human's mind.

Yeah. Because we all know it's fake. Yeah. That's what's really strange. Well, sometimes you can't tell it's fake. Boobs? Yeah. Very rarely.

If you get a real pair of them in 2022 you're like holy shit it's like finding an arrowhead look at this this is wild can you believe these are real boobs they're out there i know they're out there but um it's also like if people get really lean that's the other thing if people are like super lean and cross-fitting and shit like that it's like you're gonna your whole all your mammary glands are going to be smaller. Everything's going to be smaller. Oh, yeah, totally. You're going to get lean.

Oh, it's like gymnasts. I mean, you know, those girls, they grow up, that's all they're doing their whole life. All of that, a lot of their body growth stunts in those ways because they're just units. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Being a person is just such a fucking strange enterprise. It's so strange because, you know, when we're thinking about all these different things, about human beings, about transgender rights and the Council of Jedis,

we've only been around for a short amount of time. Yeah, we're specs, man. We're talking about 1776. We celebrated Independence Day yesterday, and here we are today. We're filming this, recording this on July 5th. It's only a few hundred years away from the revolution. Oh, yeah, dude. Less than 300 years ago that shit happened.

But also, it's one of the things I always like to point out to people. What are you chasing if you're trying to chase some kind of monument of yourself like what are all the people that are so wealthy and are trying to like maybe if i make enough money i'll be remembered forever bullshit it's never going to happen there are i mean how many people were involved in the founding of this country we don't know their names for fucking anybody. You don't, you don't. They're not even footnotes anymore. We know Jefferson.

We know quite a few people. Certainly, certainly. But there were so many people that were involved in all this stuff. Also, like, go back farther. Emperors that held power over entire empires. Somebody can be marched into their throne room and they can look at them and be like, give me the sword, pop, head off.

Nobody does anything about it. They have ultimate power. We don't remember all of their names. They're all forgotten. So what are people hanging on to all this stuff for? In 100 years, it's not going to even be a conversation. Life will have moved on, or a meteor will have hit us by that point. Who knows?

Well, we're confused. moved on or a meteor will have hit us by that point. Well, it's, we're confused. We're confused in, um, the fact that human beings are constantly trying to do the same things that corporations are trying to do. We're constantly trying to do better and constantly trying to stack up more shit, buy more stuff, have more, more success. But why? And yeah, we don't know why. Because we're afraid of not being enough well it's also because there's some sort of an innate desire to constantly feed into to the creation of new things like whatever we do as a culture one of the things that we do is we create new things all the time constantly certainly televisions better phones yeah better cameras

which is great progress you're not going to stop progress you can only guide it you know what i mean like this is going to keep marching forward're not going to stop progress. You can only guide it. You know what I mean? Like, this is going to keep marching forward. We're going to keep having new things and new things and new things and new things. I just wish that we did it not because it's all status, which is so much of what it has become. It's not because the thing actually has a great utility, although there's that as well. But, like, these little Black Mears, man, I mean, they are the greatest Swiss Army knife ever created in the history of mankind. You can do more things with that one thing.

I mean, it's insane what you can do. And it's also the deepest narcissist pool to stare into because you just get lost in all of that nonsense that you're comparing yourself to all the time, which then drives that consumerism even more. You're like, I got to have the thing, the thing, the thing. It's also a tracking device that the government uses to listen to this very conversation. They don't even have to use Spotify. They can just listen to it on our phones. I have, I've heard, in fact, I think I even heard somebody on your podcast once talk about how that's not true, that they don't listen through our phones.

Listen to me. But I, but I think, but I think it it is too because the advertisements that I get on my phones are far too specific and I don't believe it's some like triangulation because of whatever I've heard people talk about that no no no no I was talking about a very specific thing and that very specific thing popped up on my phone like they have to be listening to me it's not uncommon and it's never admitted to no but but that's just normal shit that's normal shit that's the tracking you're getting from advertising the

cross-platform tracking from apps to apps that's all normal shit the real shit is the government is listening to your fucking phone oh you're so much specifically the government yeah anytime they want they can listen to your phone I had like that and he explained these Pegasus software's he's like the original Pegasus the one they use Jeff Bezos they got like dick pics from him and shit like that okay yeah was the government got Bezos dick pics not the government it is there's an Israeli spyware called Pegasus. Oh. And another government, the Saudi Arabian government, tapped into his phone. They sent him a WhatsApp link.

And the WhatsApp link, he clicked on it. And when he clicked on it, it downloaded malware into his phone. Wow. And it allowed them to literally see everything that's on his phone. He goes, that's Pegasus 1. He's like, Pegasus 2, they don't even need you to click a link. Like, the government can just hit a switch and they're connected to your phone. And just send you the malware.

No, there's no malware anymore. They can just tap into your phone. Oh, oh, got it, got it, got it. They use this. You don't have any idea they're doing it. And they're listening to your phone. You're reading all your emails. They're reading all your text messages.

And he's like, this is a 100% real technology that's available right now. Okay. to your phone, you're reading all your emails, they're reading all your text messages, and he's like, this is a 100% real technology that's available right now to governments. So let me ask you a question then. So what's the prognosis? What is the world going to be like in 10 years if these technologies are not just very real,

but very much being implemented, and they're just the tip of whatever this particular iceberg is like, well, it depends, Zach, on whether or not you're going to be compliant. If you're going to be compliant, we're going to have a good time. We're going to have a good time together, but we're going to need equity. We're going to need equality and equity and a lot of other words that make you give up all of your sovereignty and your power and rights. We're all going to be together in one cubicle, just mushed in together. No one has a better life.

Well, yeah, that's terrifying. But I think that we can help everybody have a better life and not go down some dystopian weird shit. It's definitely possible. Because everyone, again, everyone needs to be loved old i mean you know i don't know it well that's what every human human person wants yes every human person wants love that's it yeah and needs needs love yeah when they don't get it they get sick that's what happens when people are really angry and they lash out it's almost always like if we looked at love like a quantitative thing, like, oh, look at there.

Zach, you're low in vitamin D. If they could say, oh, you have like 10% love. This is not good. Like you need way more love. Yes. The problem is we just can't measure it. But if you went to a doctor and they had some kind of. Yeah.

And they're like, oh, my God, this is right here. It's love. You're missing love. I mean, trust me, man. I struggled with depression so much throughout my life. Even as a kid, I didn't know I was depressed or dealing with anxiety or whatever. Did you find different methods that helped you relieve it? Yeah.

Well, so yeah, ultimately at 37, I talk about it in the book, but at 37, when I moved out to Austin, I had a whole meltdown. And thank God was surrounded by some friends and family that helped kind of pick me up and get me to this program that's up. And they operate out of Southern California, Connecticut. And I chose to go to Connecticut for three weeks of this like super intensive, life-changing, life-saving therapy. And it was – I threw the psychological kitchen sink at it. It was three weeks, uh, every day, at least, you know, three or four appointments that were, uh, one of either a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, um, dialectic behavioral therapist, uh, art, art therapist, meditation therapist, life coach, nutritionist, gym,

four days a week, yoga twice a week, Pilates twice a week. And that helped me tremendously. And I learned a lot of modalities and things from all of that, but that wasn't until, you know, five years ago, the rest of my life, I'd been coping by fucking boozing and drugging and sexing. You know what I mean? Like I didn't realize how much self-medicating I was doing for so long. And I wish that there would have been some way for anyone to be able to be like, let me just, I'm just going to like see what your levels are. Because I didn't even know, I didn't know that what I was constantly feeling all the time, well, anxiety, I was constantly feeling all the time. Depression would hit me in these moments where basically I'd have massive

dopamine crashes. I've, as I've as I think I've come to find out. Like I just, I would finish a job or I'd, you know, get out of a relationship or I wouldn't be working for a while. And all of a sudden it's like, I'm worthless. I'm worthless. I'm worthless. Work always kept me buoyed. If I'm at work, it's dopamine all day long. Particularly in a movie set or whatever.

It's all this little, a bunch of little puzzles. You're just solving little problems all day long. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Being on a Broadway stage. You got a movie set or whatever. It's all just a bunch of little puzzles. You're just solving little problems all day long. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Being on a Broadway stage, you got a thousand people. I mean, you understand the rush of a live audience. Fuck, you're feeding off of that energy, and you're playing jazz with this crowd. I mean, it's incredible. So much dopamine.

And I would get off doing a Broadway show, I'd be flying after the show, and then we'd go to the bar with some of my castmates and I would be drinking whiskey gingers like till three in the morning. Cause I didn't even have to be at work the next day until 6 PM or whatever. And it was all just a ton of self-medicating because I didn't love myself and I didn't know that I didn't love myself. Wow. So you just thought you were partying. Yeah, basically. Yeah. And so. I think that's what a lot of people think. You have a moment where it just comes crashing down. Is it a moment? Is it a series of moments?

No, it was like, you know, I had this big dream, still do, of moving out here, buying a bunch of land, building a movie studio slash arts commune slash resort. That's kind of like a new United Artists Studio. Someone sounds like a cult leader. Why do you think I came to Texas, bro? And so so I had you know head full of steam and dreams and all that and I was so convinced like this is what I'm Supposed to do with the rest of my life. I want to make a better Hollywood all these things right and I came out but I'd like my my Work life wasn't great at the moment like the jobs. I was doing I wasn't stoked with I was again feeling like a failure

I'd just broken up with this girl wonderful wonderful girl who was from Austin, who probably would have moved here with me, but I self-sabotaged it all. And I was like, no, I don't think this is going to work. And I came out here, I had no real support structure. And my friends and family had a beautiful community in Los Angeles, but I was like, I got to go. I got to, I feel compelled. I got to go do this. I got to go buy this land. And I'm really grateful that I did, but I didn't do it in the healthiest of ways. And so I ended up out here and I was alone and I was deeply, deeply feeling like, Oh, I've blown up my life. I don't feel support. I didn't feel like I felt like a lot of my friends and family were watching me go in this kind of almost manic state of like, I got a

fuck, you know, like just if I don't do it now, I'm not going to do it. And I knew I had to get out of California. Like California was, has been broken for so long. And I love California. I'm from California, but it's, it's just so busted in so many ways. But so I came out, had nobody, had no real support structure. Work wasn't great. Love life wasn't great. All these things were just like falling down on me. And so massive, just spiral into darkness. Damn. Yeah. It was gnarly. I mean, even went to, I mean, I was definitely considering killing myself and it wasn't the first time

that I'd ideated on certain thoughts like that. If ultimately committing suicide is like a 10 rung ladder, I was at rung nine a couple of times, a couple of times in my life, yeah. It was gnarly. But I didn't realize that the reason why you get there is because your hormones are all completely out of whack. My dopamine, my serotonin, my norepinephrine, all these things that are typically, you know.

And me going and drugging and boozing doesn't help balance those things either. But you don't know that. You're just chasing. Like, I got to be happy. I don't know how else to get through all this stuff, you know? Yeah. So all of that just came, oh, I quit smoking when I moved here too.

Oh, all together. Like all this, everything. It was so intense. But anyway, but it, you know, this place changed my life. It saved my life. But I will also mention though, that it gave me a lot of understanding of my own psychology and just psychology in general,

I suppose. But I, I learning all these things about how to like love yourself more. That's great. You can learn all that knowledge, but if you still don't believe that you are worthy of being loved, you won't apply any of it. You don't care about any of it. You don't see the value in yourself to want to put that work in, you know? And so thank God there was this woman, uh, her, her name is Beth in the book. She was, we had these like, um, uh, like companions basically like house moms, because if somebody is not in a very good place, you can't depend on them to like get up and like make themselves breakfast and get to your appointments and all that kind of jazz. It was a, a very nice place that really took care of you it was built for like ceos

that were having massive burnout and all that jazz like lots of depression and and and things of that nature but anyway we had these companions and they would rotate through lovely women all of them uh but there was one beth who was a mom of three kids just like me and my sister's middle boy between two girls and her son also struggled with mental health. And it, I, it, she turned out to be this angel, man. Like this total, God loved me through that woman in the most intense, amazing ways. And she doesn't take credit. Like she did it. She knows she was just a vessel. She was just a tool that God got to show me a mother's love. like really kind of for the first, not the first time. I know my mom loved me and tried to do her best, particularly now that I've done all the

therapy. I know that my mom did her best, but it still left me with so many holes, particularly with that maternal, you know, trauma. And so this woman ended up at least like just lighting the, the pilot light, you know, just getting me started so that I could then take that journey on and go about it more on my own. There's real people like that out there, right? Oh, yeah. That term healer is a gross word because a lot of people use it when they're just crazy charlatans. But there are people out there that are capable of helping you heal because they're so kind and so loving that they're the feeling you get when you're around them is like a medicine.

Yeah. It's like how we were talking about love, bro. You could register love. Like if you could look in your blood and go, Oh, your zinc levels are good, but your love is down.

Like if that was a real thing, I bet we would think about it differently because then we would think about it as something. Cause now that we can measure it, we would think about it as something that's actually a tangible physical thing that's necessary. But it is. We know it, in fact, in terms of like the way people feel. It is.

I think that the best thing we can do, the best proxy, which is not even the best proxy. It actually works quite well, which is getting your level checked is going into a therapist and sitting down and talking about some stuff and allowing them, uh, you know, a professional to be able to assess like, are you feeling anxious? Are you feeling depressed? Are you feeling lost? Are you feeling angry? You know, get all these things out.

They can then be that mirror back and say, Hey, I think that maybe you're operating in this way and let's, let's help, you know, psychologically, you know, chiropractor you back into being a happier, healthier version, stronger version of yourself. Because it would be great to just be like, boop, there you go. There's the level. But therapists are, I mean, that's why I think everybody needs to go to therapy. Not everybody needs to go to therapy to live. Like plenty of people don't go to therapy and they live their life and whatever. But I ultimately think that we would all benefit no matter what, no matter what, even people that are super together to just go to talk to a professional

about even a few things. It just gets those extra kinks out and helps you live a stronger, more vibrant life and better version of yourself. The sensory deprivation tank is like going to a therapist in a lot of ways. You're forced to look at your thoughts. You're forced to sit there and sit with them. If you're the type of person that examines your thoughts, if you don't, you're going to go on some weird ride when you're in there. But when you are the type of person that examines your thoughts, you're left alone with them. You don't feel your body at all. You're really alone with your thoughts.

Some of them look really silly when they're by themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I think psilocybin gives some real introspection like that too. You're just asking your ego, like the way it can melt ego. Sure. And just be sitting there like, why am I so hung up on this thing or that thing? Or why am I afraid of this or that?

Or it'll show you. Yeah, totally. It'll just stick it right in front of your face face like this is it yeah yeah for real get it together bitch for real I'm definitely gonna come back and use that sensory deprivation tank by the way time I'm gonna do it so bad yeah I've heard so many great things about it but I've just never had access I do there's a place in Austin that rents them out we should tell people what is that uh there's a place in Austin that rents them out, we should tell people. What is that? There's a float place. Oh, is it called something like float?

I think it might be actually called float, yeah. Float house? Yeah. Hold on a second, I'll tell you right now. I know there's the Ocean Lab does it, and there might be a place called float also. Yeah. I think it is called float. Kevin Johnson is the guy who owns it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just called Float. Yep, that's it. What are those sessions normally when, you think? Like $100 for an hour? Probably something like that. I don't know what they charge. The Float Lab is the place that I got my tank from, and they're the premier float manufacturers, float tank manufacturers.

They're in Venice. And so my friend Crash runs that place. He's got one in Venice, and I think they also have another one still, I believe it's in Westwood, California. But they make the best tanks. Like his, did you see all that crazy gear and shit? It's all like, bro. I was like, oh, wow, this is a commitment. Like you need a whole ass room.

Yeah, you need a whole room for a float tank. He can make a smaller one with still adequate filtration, but that's like top of the food chain commercial filtration. I expect nothing less here at the Joe Rogan Experience. They sell some for your home though that have a smaller footprint and they're still

like if it's just going to be you using it, you don't have to worry about people peeing in there or jerking off or anything. What if I want that, Joe? What if I want that? Stop yucking other people's yum, okay? You just have to ask the person who goes before you. It'll make it more buoyant, bro.

Do me a favor. He'd go in there and it smells like asparagus. Like, what the fuck, man? Oh, shit. How do you clean that? I mean, I guess it's just a big salty room. Do you have to clean it? Well, that whole thing actually has a commercial water filtration system.

Oh, so it just kind of, okay, got it, got it. That's like, that takes out everything. And then it goes through ozone. There's a whole series of things that it kills things through. It goes over, I think it goes through LED light, too. There's like a lot of shit that goes on before it pours into the, and it cycles out. Like it constantly does. It has a jacuzzi pump and it cycles out.

Slick. Yeah, so it's on a timer. So it's like, I forget what time of the day, but every time of the day it'll just like, like cycles all the water. Because it has to. It's actually, there's so much salt in there. It gums up the gears if it doesn't do that. Can you hear that going when you're in the tank

or is it it won't go when you're in the tank okay gotcha what you do is you set it to only go like four in the morning got it like that got it got it got it yeah i'm definitely getting a cold plunge that's for sure i've had friends that have been so hot on it i've done it a bit in my life but not consistently that's a great way to raise your uh endorphin levels yeah more epinephrine yeah like the feeling you get after a cold plunge is really wild. Oh yeah, I love it. I just have never had a consistent access to a proper cold plunge.

Yeah, I do that shit. I try to do it at least three times a week, if not four. Sauna I do almost every day. I'm up to almost every day on the sauna. How hot do you get in there? 185 degrees, that's what I like. That's what I like It's not as hot as Laird Hamilton gets in the 200s

Monster he's a monster like those exercises he does where he's a hold rocks down at the bottom of the ocean Unit well, yeah, he does a air dne bike in the sauna with oven mitts on. So he gets that sauna cranked up to 200 fucking degrees. What the fuck? That guy's going to survive anything. Yeah. Well, he's very health conscious. We have his coffee here.

He made a coffee machine for me. It's like Laird Hamilton's superfood coffee machine. And if you press a button, it'll make you like a turmeric coffee, like coffee with coconut milk and turmeric. It's really good. Yeah. And it's like he's got them with cacao and a bunch of- Why aren't we having one of those? Jesus, Joe.

Well, I drink that sometimes too. The problem with that though, honestly, is it does make me, it gives me like phlegm. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it makes me, it fucks up conversations. Totally understood. Yeah. Totally understood. You can get your mouth gummed up.

Oh, yeah. I do it all the time still. So if you hear me going, that's what that is. Most of the time. Yeah. It gives you phlegm or something, whatever it's doing. But anyway, it's really good for you. And he's just very much into like foods that are anti-inflammatory

things like turmeric yeah stuff well we all should be yeah i mean by the way that's another thing that terrifies me which is the whole save soil and you know what's going on with our top soil everywhere in the world like what the fuck dude what the fuck is about to happen what is gonna happen i don't know when you don don't have regenerative practices of farming, you're supposed to – farmers forever have been taking their compost and they've been taking food scraps and all these different things and using them to create healthy bacteria and then using that on their soil. They've been doing that forever, and we don't do that anymore.

And we monocrop with fertilizer. It's just not how it's supposed to be. And this is the problem with people that, even people that think that they're doing well by only eating plants. Well, you're definitely probably contributing to some factors less, but you're also contributing to monocrop agriculture,

which is one of the most degenerative practices we know of. To get thousands and thousands of acres and just plant one crop is kind of fucking crazy. It's kind of crazy. I mean, I didn't know how crazy it was until I knew how crazy it was because I didn't know really anything about farming. But once it came to my attention, like, oh, no, that's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to rotate the crops because they have different essentially profiles of

how they grow and then what they suck in i mean man we should be planting fields and fields and fields of industrial hemp to do so many amazing things with including sucking a bunch of carbon up out of the atmosphere we also they kill a lot of animals to do those monocrop agriculture setups yeah they kill a lot of animals. They displace a lot of animals, and a lot of animals get chopped up in those fucking gears when they're harvesting. Yeah, like prairie dogs and stuff like that. They kill a lot of shit.

And it's just not supposed to be that way. If you really love nature, you would not love that. Because that is the worst, that is like some sort of a distortion of what nature is when you drive by some crazy cornfields like whoa this is kind of nuts like look how much fucking corn they got here and that corn's all going to feed it's not it's like most of it most of the soy and corn is all just going to fucking feed and guess what cows aren't even supposed to eat they're not

even supposed to eat it it's so it does make them fat and delicious i'm not saying that you need it i prefer uh grass-fed meat anyway it's like it tastes better yeah oh guarantee better for you yeah guaranteed and it's just you don't feel bad like that's what they're supposed to be doing it's supposed to be eating grass like if you stuff them full of fucking marshmallows and and corn and though that's like Wagyu freaks me out the most. Oh, yeah. Because they basically made the sickest, most obese cows. Yeah, yeah. Just so they're more tender and delicious.

And you know what, though? I will say, I've had some good Wagyu. I have. But sometimes I have and I'm like, this is too much. This isn't enough. It's almost too buttery. Right. You know what I mean?

I want a little more steak. I want something something more than that more of a chew to it but i would you know going back to people um who are more plant-based in their diets you know one of the other things i find fascinating which is i think i actually learned it on this podcast which was how now we recognize that plants are way more intelligent than we've given them credit for for so long and communicate with each other and help each other. And with, you know, all the mushrooms connecting. What is that called? Mycelium. Mycelium.

Thank you. All that all going on. So it's like, well, you don't want to like, you know, friends of mine who are vegan, they don't want to eat food because they don't want to kill an animal because they see a soul. They connect a soul or something to that. I go, okay. But these trees might actually have some kind of a presence in them, even though they can't verbalize or do the things that animals do. How do you know that they also don't have some kind? I mean, like the studies where they played, you know, certain music or they taught those ferns, like, that they were dropping.

You know what I mean? Like, they learned. that they were dropping. You know what I mean? They learned. The plant learned something. You know they can hear? Yes, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, they can hear sounds. The sounds of grasshoppers eating them. And they'll change their flavor profile.

Yes. So you go, well, what is that? What is that? What is that? If not some form of life intelligence. I don't know. I don't know that they're on par with know. I don't know that they're on par with animals I don't know that they're not but we make these really interesting kind of arbitrary

More moral, you know stands I think sometimes I'm being like well animals are more of a life than a tree And it's like yeah, I don't know. I don't know I don't know that you can stand on that and still have the moral high ground Particularly just don't want suffering right really the best thing ground. We just don't want suffering, right? Really, the best thing to eat if you don't want suffering is shellfish because they can't feel shit. Really? If you eat clams and scallops and stuff, yeah,

there's a real good argument for vegans eating shellfish because they're so primitive. They just move. They don't have minds. There's no nervous system to speak of like ours that can register pain. Yeah, scallops don't have minds like there's no nervous system to speak of like hours that can register pain yeah scallops don't out that's they don't even bleed like when you you cut a oyster out they're not bleeding right there's no like they're they're so primitive but they're a source of meat it's a very strange animal because it doesn't really think yeah it just closes opens

and closes right it's like a it's a muscle literally just one muscle but because it doesn't really think yeah it just closes opens and closes right it's like a it's a muscle literally just one muscle but because it moves like that we consider it an animal and then if you look at the like the protein and the amino acid uh if you like look at the content of the an actual oyster it's much more like an animal or a fish than it is like a plant so it's not a plant but it's dumber than a plant right they're more primitive than plants so it's like you'd be a mean person to eat a lettuce over a oyster interesting because oysters are dumb as fuck well don't fish don't fish in general like lack a lot of nervous system or something i don't't buy that, dude, because they fucking freak out when you hook them.

Yeah. And they seem to be in pain, you know, when you cut into them. If you gut a fish, they look like they're in pain. I don't buy it at all. I just think they can't scream. I think we do all. They can't even feel it.

Like, I don't know if they... I was at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo before. You've been to Tokyo, right? Yes, I have. Oh, man, I fucking love that place so much. Fascinating place. So cool. So cool.

Japan is just a cool spot. But I was at a sushi restaurant there once, and it was like a small one. We're sitting at a table. There's a tank right kind of above where we're sitting. And there was fresh fish in the tank. They would take the fish out, fillet a side off the fish, and put the fish back in the tank. Oh, my God. And the fish would just keep swimming around, waiting for the other half of it to be taken off.

Oh, my God. I was like, this is a thing? Oh, my God. I couldn't believe it. But the fish didn't seem phased. It didn't seem like it was like wigging out and freaking out. So I was like, oh, maybe there is some truth to this. I don't know.

Or maybe it's just that type of fish or whatever. I don't know. But it was a trip, bro maybe there is some truth to this. Or maybe it's just that type of fish or whatever. I don't know. But it was a trip, bro. I've heard that same argument about lobsters. Like the lobsters can't feel pain, but then you throw them

in the water, they freak out. Yeah. I mean, they freak out a little. Hopefully you put them in the tempered water and then you slowly cook them.

Yeah? Is that what you're supposed to do? Yeah, right? Like a frog in a pot. Oh, really? Oh, no, maybe just frogs because they jump out. Maybe a lobster.

Yeah, lobsters, you're supposed to boil the fuck out of them. No, no, I know, but I thought you started, you put them in regular water and then you just slowly boil them. Just to trick them? Yeah, well, I don't know. Well, we're kind of like really compassionate lobster eaters. We want to kill them, but we don't want them to know we're going to kill them. Hey, listen, man. You know, sometimes the lobsters got some feelings they need to process.

I don't know if they do, though. I think that's the question. I think there's a real legitimate debate as to whether or not they can actually feel anything. Did you know that they can grow indefinitely? Yeah. And they will if they don't get predated? Like, that's so crazy to me that a lobster could just basically keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Like, that's crazy.

They found one recently that was 100 years old. damn. Yeah, see if you could find that they found I think I'm 99% positive It's also fascinating to me that lobster for the longest time was not considered a delicacy It was it was sea insect look at this fisherman catches Fisherman catches enormous 100-year-old lobster. His answers may have met. That's a lobster that's 100 years old. That doesn't look that big. Well, I don't think they necessarily keep growing if they don't get all the food. It's pretty goddamn big.

That's pretty big. It's pretty big. Wow. Yeah. But yeah, everybody- I'm pretty sure he let it go. Nobody liked to eat lobster before it was basically just marketed. It's like diamonds.

Nobody cared about wearing diamonds on their rings until De Beers. Well, poor people would get them out of the river, and they would eat them at bars. They were like bar food. Yeah, totally. Lobster in New York. Yeah. Yeah. But it wasn't a nice thing.

It was like, yeah. Yeah, they figured it. But also, it is fucking delicious, especially with melted butter. Yeah, I've had some decent lobster, but I'd still- Don't you come down on lobster, Zachary. I would still prefer crab over lobster. Really? Yes, it tastes way better.

You're a man of the people. I get it. Crab just tastes better, bro. I understand. You think so? Oh, yeah. I mean, I personally think the flavor profile of crab is a much tastier. I don't know.

It's like saltier. It's got more. They're just a pain in the ass. I'll tell you what. Michelob got me with a fucking advertisement back in the day where a bunch of guys were eating stone crabs and drinking Michelob's. And to this day, I think of beer with crabs. Oh, sure. They fucking locked me in.

Advertising is real, man. That was a really good one. It is really, really real. These guys, they went crabbing. They got the crab. They're drinking beer. It's like, damn, that looks fun. I bet they're telling some funny jokes.

I want to hang out with those guys. And that's just written into your neuroplasticity. You're going to find that every single time. When I have crabs, I want a beer. Always. It's true. I mean, they do go well together anyway. It's a great combination. Fish and chips and beer are great too. Always. It's true. I mean, they do go well together anyway. It's a great combination.

Yeah, they do go well. Fish and chips and beer are great too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Solid combination. Yeah. There's certain things that a beer just goes a hot dog. Yeah.

Beer and a hot dog. That's a fucking good combo right there, especially with sauerkraut. Sauerkraut, mustard, beer. Oh. Come on, man. So happy. It's like a great Dodger game. Yeah.

Sometimes it's good to be fat and happy. You know, some days. Oh, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, indulge, but then recognize that that was that moment, and now let's take care of myself. Or drive right off a cliff.

Let's not do that. I'm here to tell people to love themselves, not drive off a cliff. There it is. Is this the ad? Yeah, look at these people. It's Milwaukee. Oh, it's Milwaukee? Old Milwaukee.

That's right. Not Michelob. Hey, Michelob got the credit. Old Milwaukee. These guys look like dorks. Aren't these the guys that were inspiring you to hang out? Thank you. You cured me of it.

I'll hang out with those guys. You cured me of it because they look annoying now. As I'm older and I'm realizing, I bet those guys were losers. I bet their story sucked. Let me see it again. Florida Keys. I love that they give you the setting. All three of those guys died from cocaine that they got from the money they used to film this commercial.

Look at him. Oh, man. Oh, man. You can't have one without the other. Look, sucking on those crabs, telling stupid stories. And then she shit in my bed and I took her back. You know what? It doesn't get any better than this. It doesn't get any better than that for them.

They're not wrong. Because they suck at conversations. Those guys are both, all three of them, they're annoying. What kind of beer do you drink? Are you a pilsner guy? Are you a pale ale person? I like all kinds of beer. I like, I even like crazy crafty beers when dudes get crafty.

There's this place called, I think it's called Lor out here. L-O-R. I think called, I think it's called Lor out here, L-O-R. I think Loro. I think it's called Loro. Yeah, L-O-R-O. It's like an Asian barbecue place. You know the spot? Great spot.

Fantastic food. But they also have a beer that's like a kombucha beer. It was wild. And they give it to you like in a small glass. Like I was going to get, I was like i was like i'll go get a beer and i'm you know i picked a beer and they give it to me in this like little thing that's not a beer and then you drink and you're like oh wow this is wild like what a wild flavor is it like hard kombucha yeah it's like a hard kombucha but it's like a beer it tastes i guess they might not have even called it kombucha beer but it tasted like kombucha and beer like a combination of beer chat like I like that kind of shit

I like a lot of weird beers like who um Do you remember who brought in those? There's a company that makes Like it looks like wine bottles, and we had it out there firm Isn't it firm isn't it called firm anyway that was a a beer that tasted like almost like a combination of a beer and a sparkling wine it was really interesting so people do weird stuff with beer now micro brewing is like insane there's so many different types of beers now so So I like that stuff, but I also like a Heineken every now and then.

Yeah. You know, I like a good beer, solid beer. People are like, Heineken sucks. No, it doesn't. It just tastes like Heineken. It's a solid taste. Yeah, it's interesting how people just want to, just because something is like, I don't know, a staple or well-made.

Yeah, or mainstream. Particularly, there's a lot of beer snobs that are so about the craft beers that it's like, oh, you drink Dos Equis. It's like, yeah, I like Dos Equis. I like Modelo. I like Budweiser. I like them. There's a reason why they're popular, you fucking idiot. Yeah, for real. And they're refreshing.

Yeah. It's cold Budweiser is refreshing as fuck. It's very refreshing. I know dudes who drink them after they run. The first time I ever got drunk, I was living up in the Seattle area. My family had moved up there for a little while when I was in middle school. And my older sister was in her first year of high school.

And she and her friends were loading up into uh one of her you know older friends vans like panel van with like there was like a mesh gate from like the you know front seats to the back and there was no seats in the back it was like a couch or like two couches and just boxes of um uh naughty ice natural ice beer i don't know right right sure and uh though my sister protested heavily her friends were like yeah, yeah, no, bring your little brother. He's going to come. And I was like, I don't even know, 12? Oh, no. And I was ripped.

At 12? I was ripped, bro. Jesus Christ. How much did you drink? Oh, I don't know. Probably four beers. But Naughty Ice was like. For a 12-year-old. I know. Yeah, I know. Jesus Christ. How much did you drink? Oh I don't know probably four beers but a naughty ice was like. For a 12 year old I know yeah I know

it was insane but it's not like I did that all the time like that was like like the first cigarette I ever smoked was probably when I was 12 but I didn't smoke another cigarette until I was 13 and then so on and so forth. I wasn't like out boozing it up all the time. I wasn't a 12 year old booze hound but I remember it I mean it's like it's core memory for me.

I partly remember it because my youngest sister, we were leaving at the house by herself. It was so dumb. We're leaving Shekinah at the house and she starts coming out the front door like, where are you going? And my older sister Sarah, she's like, go tell Shekinah to get back in the house. And so I step, I go

to step out of the van and I trip and my left leg goes down and hyper extends like all the bends all the way in bro and i'm on the ground my whole knee is on fire pins and needles up ah but i didn't want to lose like i wanted to save all the face and still go out with these cool older kids so i get up on my i'm cool i'm cool and i go hobble over to my sister tell her to go back in the house we go to the park and get drunk and I'll tell you what I didn't feel my knee for the rest of the night it was groovy so did it wind up destroying your knee or no thank god man

like it's so flexible oh yeah they just yeah we're rubber when we're kids we're rubber yeah they bounce off of shit I've watched my kids bounce off of stuff you're like you're gonna be all right yeah yeah but that's also why it's so great to learn skills, particularly physical skills when you're younger. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Like all those people that start snowboarding when they're two. Well, that's tough. That's tough.

But if you start when you're a teeny little kid, not only are you getting the mechanics, but you have no fear because you're two feet from the ground. You're falling nowhere. getting the mechanics, but like you have no fear because you're two feet from the ground. You're falling nowhere. Yeah. And you can keep chancing that and chancing that until, you know, eventually your bones become more brittle and you don't want to be chancing that anymore. Yeah. My youngest daughter started skiing before she was two.

You know, we just got her on one of them little- She's 12. Oh, yeah. Got her on one of them little bunny trails. Yeah. You know? And then they have those little magic carpets that the kids ride up, and then they ride down.

I love those magic carpets. It's so adorable. When you go to a ski place, and you see little kids skiing, you're like, look at the little tiny- Little pizza wedges. On the little ski area. Yeah, just little pizza wedges going up. And they're like little tiny, with their little outfits.

But if you can learn physical tasks, yeah. I feel bad for people that don't do anything physical, and then they try to pick it up when they're 45. Yeah, that's rough, man. Their body's all uncoordinated and deteriorated. It sucks. It's tough. It sucks that we don't get taught that this is actually beneficial to your mind.

Like, we never got taught that. We're saying it now. That moving your body. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Nobody ever heard that when we were kids. Well, yeah, because I don't think that they had any understanding of it at all. Which is crazy.

Which is crazy. Which is crazy. It's not that long ago. It's not, but at least we have the Hubermans and everybody of the world who are like, hey, guys, we're really drilling down into this stuff. Let's understand why our bodies act the way that they do. Let's understand why. You know, we all think we're in so much control of our mind when it's so fragile.

It can be hijacked in a moment's notice if your hormones are off, if you're not doing the things that can take care of this whole package. If that old Milwaukee commercial comes on, they get you. They get you. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, it is. It's just, it's really weird that if you think about how long human beings have been around, that we're just learning this in the last couple of generations, that it's important to use your body and take care of your mind. That was never brought up to people from our parents' age.

No one was broadcasting that. I think a lot of Eastern philosophy still held onto it, but it was certainly not an American Western concept, man. I mean, we've been so backwards about so many things, particularly when it comes to health and wellness, for so long. It's such a bummer. We were actually going to look that up yesterday, Jamie. Who was it that was talking about using your body so it doesn't betray your mind? Who was it? Was it Aristotle?

There's a lot of quotes of variations of it from back then, so I could have known about Socrates and Aristotle. Oh, yeah, you had Ryan Holiday on. You guys were talking about that Stoic stuff. Yeah. Yeah, he's fascinating. Yeah. He lives out near me in Bastrop.

Yeah, he's a really interesting guy, and his work is so extensive. His love of the Stoics is so excellent. It's so extensive. I follow his Stoic Instagram, and it's always fascinating. It's also so cool to me, though, that if you really drill down into all of the Stoicisms,

there's such universal wisdoms and truths, which to me just says, that's the difference between information and wisdom. Like information is information, but that sometimes information changes. In fact, oftentimes information changes, but wisdom is universal truth. It is something that has been riding through our minds and hearts and DNA as human beings and has been passed down and passed down and passed down. I mean, gosh, who's the awesome dude you had on that talks about meteors and, you know. Randall Carlson?

Yes, Randall Carlson. And talking about how, you know, Plato was like, what's the Atlantis? All that kind of stuff. Like maybe that really happened. Maybe the human beings have been around in some form for way longer, but you know, whatever, like, I don't know that that's, that stuff seems to be that wisdom that's been passed down forever. Like guys wake the fuck up, stop doing this stupid shit. Like those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And we keep doing it over and over and over again. Marcus Aurelius' book, Meditations, is really, really interesting because it's almost 2,000 years old.

Yeah. And when you read it, you're like, wow. Like this guy had some really fascinating insight as to what it means to be a person, how to be forgiven, how to forgive people. Like Marcus Aurelius, who's the head of rome was like really into forgiving people yeah he's a fascinating guy and when ryan holiday sort of lays out his life and talks about how he was sort of betrayed and what all went wrong with him it's like well seneca i think seneca was another like incredible uh example of someone with such i mean all of them but you know he had incredibly deep i think uh caring empathetic wisdom as well but also j of them, but you know, he had incredibly deep, I think, uh, caring, empathetic wisdom as well, but also Jesus.

I mean, like, you know, speaking of a manuscript from 2000 years ago, and there's so much incredibly accurate, real deep wisdom in the Bible. However you want to chop it up, old Testament, new Testament, whatever I have found there to be such power, but by the way, particularly when it comes to love, particularly listening to what Jesus would talk about when it comes to love. You know what's interesting about that? Transformational. Like Marcus Aurelius was 100% real.

We've read his stuff. Like meditations is available right now for anyone to read. Although apparently there's more stringent translations according to Ryan. But Jesus is like debated. That he existed or that he was what he claimed to be? Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't think he existed really Yeah, there's a documentary called the man who wasn't there really interesting documentary because it deals with like the historical reality of Jesus It's not it the man who wasn't there

Very interesting doctor. So what did they propose? Very interesting documentary. So what did they propose happened then? Well, there's not a lot of references to Jesus, historical references, like other than the Bible. There's not like a lot of references to him being a real person of significance in that era, apparently. This is me. It was not very well studied. No, no, no. Understood.

But what I'm saying is that it's debated. It's not debated whether or not Marcus Aurelius existed. Certainly, yeah. The God who wasn't there. That's what it'm saying is that it's debated. It's not debated whether or not Marcus Aurelius existed. Certainly, yeah. The God who wasn't there. That's what it is. A film being in belief. Go to, what does it say? 2005 independent documentary written and directed by Brian Fleming.

The documentary questions the existence of Jesus, examining evidence that supports the Christ myth theory against the existence of a historical Jesus as well as other aspects of Christianity. So I don't know if this is accurate or inaccurate, but I do know that there is debate as to whether or not Jesus existed. Sure. Even if he did. But there's no debate as to Marcus Aurelius. But they're from the same time period. They're only separated by like 100 years.

I guess. I think. I guess I would still wonder though like. Is that true? If. Yeah. Okay. 161 to 180 almost 200 years yeah so uh yeah that's it's not fucking wild though ad 161 this motherfucker was writing his private notes yeah to himself and ideas on stoic philosophy he wrote 12 books of the meditations in coin greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement

Fucking amazing. He's so goddamn smart and it just makes you think like I Wonder what that existence must have been life like back then like what Rome must have been like at you know 161 ad god it must have been fascinating when was1 AD. God, it must have been fascinating. When was the fall of Rome? I can't remember. Like, was he living in the heyday or was he? That's a good question. Jamie?

Fall of the Roman, Western Roman Empire. It's got a date, September 4th, 476 AD. 476, okay, so he was still living in some heyday Rome. Yeah. Shit was still kicking. 476 AD. Yeah, it's a trip. I'm assuming you've been to Rome as well.

Oh, yeah. Dude, walking around those... What is that? It's a picture of the rise and fall. Wow. The decline and fall. I don't know what it really looked like that day. The lust for power led to Rome's decline and fall.

Oh, you mean like the United States? Well, everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah, everybody, everywhere. You mean like Russia? This is the thing. These are leaders of countries that need to figure out how to love themselves so they don't need to keep conquering everybody else and taking everything else.

Go to that picture again of the guy trying to pull down the statue. Dude, people back then were jacked. Yeah, they were. Like, if that was Antifa, our Antifa guys would fall to their death while trying to climb there. There'd be, like, three or four deaths before anybody ever got the noose on that statue. And that guy's, like, feeling that guy's butt. He's like, damn, dude, you've been squatting.

He's got him in the lower back. He's got him in the lower back, Joe. But he's looking at his butt. See how he's looking at in the lower back, Joe. But he's looking at his butt. See how he's looking at it? Straight at it. I think he's looking at the rope. The guy's also completely naked. Like, how about covering your cack there, fella?

It's artistic interpretation, Joe. I understand what you're saying. Let the men be naked. It's called talking shit, Zach. I know, bro. The Antifa, the the Antifa the whole Antifa crew back then

they looked like Conan look at him the guy on the sword or the guy on the horse rather look at him he's wearing clothes he looks like a general

or something the point is the people that were the rebellious people back then were like really fit yeah I mean there was a lot of

manual labor back then that's all you did a lot of walking around yeah that's all you did and there was a lot of manual labor back then that's all you a lot of walking around yeah that's all you did and there was no uh like fatty foods in terms of like no sugars oh yeah there's no oh yeah you couldn't get pastries and there's you know there's probably no candy bars isn't that a trip to like why we even have sugar cravings the way that we do because once upon a time as hunter-gatherers we would find berries and we would just fucking gorge because we didn't know when we'd see him again and now that's translated into I can't stop eating gummy bears like it's so insane our bodies are so crazy like that what's so insane that

we've hijacked them yeah figured out a way to get so much sugar into a drink like we drink it you like it's's terrifying it's terrifying how much sugar is in a soda man it's insane it's a shitload it's a shitload and the the really scary thing is how much most people have in a day what do you let's ask this how many grams of sugar do you think the average american consumes in a day 25 25 grams? I think the average American definitely has at least... Way more than that. Oh, way more than that? Yeah, because it's like 30... 25 is what you have to stay keto.

Oh, all right. 250. Doesn't a Coke have like 30? Yeah. More than that, I think. I think a Coke has more than what you need in a whole day. Oh, for sure. If you're on a ketogenic diet.

For sure. There's so much. 77. That's what I said, 77. More than three times the recommended amount for women. I bet that's a lie. But see, that's the thing. If it's more than three times the recommended amount for women, come on.

Dude, most people are having way more than that. If you just found out what an apple juice is, you ever look at a fucking apple juice? Yeah, dude, it's crazy. Apple juice is like 50 grams of sugar. What is this? Those little juices at Starbucks, those green juices or whatever? Packed full of sugar.

So much sugar. It was higher a few years ago. Really? Yeah. People dropped it? Yeah. 111 grams of sugar a day. That was the average.

So find out what eight ounces of apple juice is. Because I saw it one time, one of my kids was laughing because I can't even read those fucking things. My eyes don't work that good. Do you know about... She was reading the ingredients on apple juice and she got to the sugar and she was like, what the hell? Have you ever heard... 24 grams for

four, how many ounces? Eight ounces of apple juice. Oh, jeez. Yeah, 24 grams. I think some of them are different, but that's a lot. Have you ever heard about, I'm sure you have, that whole study that was done, which basically formed our food pyramid that was paid for by the sugar industry? Oh, yeah. Fucking crazy. Not just that, but they actually bribed scientists to take the heat off of sugar and put it on saturated fat.

And put it on saturated, which totally screwed everything up more. Screwed up a lot of people's bodies, too. Oh, man. Because their diets got all fucking confused. Yeah. They're eating margarine because they think it's good for them. Yeah. It's insane, man.

And the FDA allows these things to go on. It's just mind-boggling to me It is no I mean, I guess it's not because it's all again. It's all lobbyists and people being paid off And there's a lot of crooks out there That's a lot of crooks out there and these people have been co-opted by these enormous corporations So these people can make decisions that benefit the corporations And it benefits their career. And then they move on to get jobs in those corporations.

And meanwhile, everybody else is fucked. Isn't it oftentimes that the head of the FDA at any time was a former CEO of one of the pharmaceutical companies? And then will also return to them? They go back and forth. That's insanity. That we are not all like, what the fuck? What the fuck? This is a rigged system.

This should stop immediately. Have you ever seen that documentary Inside Job? It's about the financial crisis of 2008. I don't know. It's a really good documentary. But one of the things that's really good about it is that the guy who's the host of it, they think that they're going to be able to just respond to his questions and they'll just paint a rosy picture of what went wrong and what we need to do next. And so he

starts calling them out on all the various regulatory decisions that were made. And then he points out that these people oftentimes that are setting economic policy, these people that they're getting recommendations from are these mathematicians that work for these universities. And then these mathematicians, they set these standards that the government uses, and then they get jobs in these major corporations afterwards. So they set standards that benefit these major corporations, and then they leave their job at the university to make millions of dollars working for these corporations Yeah, so they'll set these financial

You know pathways Where these corporations can profit? Yeah, and then they can profit It's wild because most of no one has integrity anymore But the guy who is the host of this documentary is great because he really understands the financial system. And so he starts calling these guys out while he's interviewing them and explaining what they did wrong and why it fucked everybody up. And they're like, you can see these guys are like, oh, shit. I didn't know this guy would understand the game. Wow.

It's a great documentary. And when did it come out? Right after the crash. So it was like 2010 or something like that? Yeah, probably somewhere around then. All right. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

I think it's called An Inside Job. But it's just disheartening to know that there's so many fucking creeps that are so fucking corrupt that are in charge of making decisions that all of us have to live with. Well, yeah, there's another documentary I saw. I think it was called The Cutting Edge. I don't know. It was on Netflix. But a lot of this stuff about the FDA,

I learned from that because there are all these, not just drugs, but medical devices and things that are constantly being okayed that are fucking people up, like meshes that they would put inside women who had a hysterectomy, like major problems with these faulty products but they were all just nobody decided to give it enough testing

because they had a little fucking you know side deal like we know i used to work for them they're gonna we're gonna get this in there like it's insane and there's no accountability well that's what john abramson talked about when he was on the podcast. Yeah. He sort of really highlighted some of the more spectacular instances of that, like the Vioxx instance. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of that. It's like you can't trust people that have a history of doing that. We should all know that. And so if the same people that did that are also now trying to do this, keep your fucking eyes open, please.

Just keep your eyes open. Don't just dive in here. But I think we should, honestly, I mean, I feel like we should be keeping our eyes open with everything. With everything. Yeah, with all industry. Because all industry is bought, all of it.

I mean, I wish to God I could look to one field and feel like it's being run with integrity. It's being run in a way where the corporation, the industry are valuing the lives of the people that run their entire situation and also valuing the lives of the user downstream with whatever they're providing, but they don't, they don't give a fuck. You never really get like a whole industry that's, that's on the up and up, but you do get people that operate in the industry, like people that run regenerative farms. Sure.

There's people that do have good ethics and good morals. But they're not leading. Well, it's just like, that's the problem. It's like when you're talking about feeding 30 million people. Like, how are you doing it? How are you doing it? How are you doing that with regenerative farming? How are you going to feed that many fucking people? How many farms do you need? Like, where are you going it? How are you doing it? How are you doing that with regenerative farming? How are you going to feed that many fucking people? How many farms do you need?

Where are you going to put them? How are you going to replace factory farming in terms of output? Is it going to be lab-made meat? What are you going to do? I hope not. And not only that, the energy crisis. I mean, the ways that people get down on nuclear, and it's like, what are we supposed to do? Well, nuclear is probably the best option for the future.

It is, but people still want to hate it so much, so much. Well, we're scared, scared of like three mile Island and Chernobyl and all that shit. Uh, it would fucking suck. It would, it would. Uh, another documentary that I watched a while ago called Pandora, I think it's called Pandora's promise Schellenberger actually was in it as well. I'm not you know, and he was like I used to be so anti-nuclear I was completely against this. Yeah, and then I realized I Didn't understand fully what I was playing and talking about, you know, it's a great documentary But yeah, people are scared but leading out of fear. They're just that's more fear

Yeah, most of the people that understand nuclear in terms of when they're looking at our potential to make clean energy, what's the most likely scenario? Nuclear is a great one because they have better methods of developing those power plants with better fail-safes. What happened at Fukushima, it's an old system. And they also have the ability to build sites, plants where you can recycle the waste. So it's not just immediately put into a barrel and then like it's buried for a million years.

You actually can take that same waste and recycle it through and get more and more out of it until it becomes even more inert. And then you go and dispose of it in a very safe way. But again, how, if we don't do that, like I'm all about regenerative everything, but there's a lot of people that don't have, still don't have really good power sources in this world. And we're just going to not go with a thing that could help the most amount of people

with the least amount of impact is a, it's a bummer. Yeah. When you think, you think about how many coal plants we have running, that should stop. Like we did this podcast once where we watched a documentary about this one town in Indiana that has like a series of coal plants around it. That's so bad that like all their cars are covered in this like fine coal dust. And like, Hey man man you're fucking breathing that yeah you got to get out of there they all have like lung ailments and asthma and diseases and

shit like you guys are breathing toxic air don't they have the ability to put like those filters on the tops of their smokestacks that like kind of capture all that stuff i don't know i mean how much can you really capture can you capture all of Like, what if you only capture 10%? What if you capture 20%? You're still good. The bottom line is it's not a clean way to develop energy. No. But nuclear is. And it's a thing that we're sort of conditioned to be afraid of.

Yeah. That's unfortunate. Yeah, it is because those systems that they had in the 1970s, like the Fukushima system that fucked up, they could have way better shit now. If we started implementing brand new power plants with 2022 technology, that would be wild. We could fix a lot of shit.

And if they really want to implement electric cars nationwide and have an even greater impact on the environment. But, you know, everybody like you say nuclear, they go disaster, nuclear disaster. It's like those two things are like connecting in people's heads. And not to mention the fact that all of the battery components are getting out of rare earth and all of that practice, which is horrible for the environment, even to make a lot of these electric cars that are helpful for the environment so it's like where is the moral high ground in all of this where can't we all come together again get this jedi council of nine people and be like can we just be fair about all of the pros and cons here and figure out how we can all

move forward and everybody can actually have energy and power, which is one of the greatest, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Benefits to mankind. Well, equalizer. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like we didn't, there was a lot we didn't accomplish as human beings until all of a sudden we had lamps.

And then we had kerosene lamps and that was like, oh my God, we can stay up a lot and we can put kerosene all through the streets and we have lights. And then all of a sudden electricity and it's like, oh my God, we can stay up a lot and we can put kerosene all through the streets and we have lights. And then all of a sudden electricity is like, oh my gosh, look at all the things we accomplish as human beings just because we have this. And how many people live in this world who don't have any of that? They're still struggling.

And that's not to mention, obviously, just having lights on, but powering wells for water and all of the things that these people would be able to benefit from. Yeah. I just wonder what they're going to do about the battery thing. The battery thing is, unless they come up with batteries that they make out of nuclear waste, didn't they figure out a way to recycle nuclear waste to use as some, there was some new revolutionary idea that someone was pushing about nuclear waste. The problem is all this complaining

is on a phone that's made by slaves. At the end of the day. Ain't that some shit? That's some shit. Like, bro, the whole thing. It says they're making batteries from lab-grown gems known as diamond batteries to make. And those diamonds, so by encapsulating radioactive materials inside diamonds we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear

powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy the team have demonstrated a prototype diamond battery using nickel 63 as the radiation source holy shit um makes sense makes sense that someone will figure that out slight slight tangent have you seen this dude i think he's in texas he created uh a machine that just makes water out of thin air. Have you seen this? I have seen that guy. I've seen, didn't he just, somebody fucking sabotaged his shit somewhere. Yes, they sabotaged one of his units, but they got on top of it.

And now Viola Davis had totally pumped him up on Instagram, so he's getting a lot of donations and stuff. But I think he's legit. Everything I've looked at, it's like this guy actually made this thing, which could totally revolutionize the world. Well, it definitely works, apparently. It pulls water out of moisture in the air. Yeah.

But I don't think it's... I think it takes a long time. But he was giving away free water. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that was pissing people off. Of course. So the people that were selling water- Yeah. Sabotage.

Because all these people own all of our water. Yeah. Well, I mean, it could be just local people that were selling water from stores and just decided that their water sales were down. This guy had set up shop in the parking lot. Possibly. I wonder, putting my tinfoil hat on, I wonder if there's not a entities at work who want to stifle things that would really revolutionize certain industries. I mean, like, you know, there's been a couple of different people who have come up with, you know, hydrogen engines or, you know, something for a car that would just like run on water. And for some reason, somehow all of those people die, like very strangely.

You know, the one who said he got poisoned? His last words, were they poisoned me? You don't know that story? No. What happened? This is the guy who invented a supposed water-powered car. And he goes to meet someone to discuss this water-powered car. And he starts gasping for it.

He goes to meet someone to discuss it, like someone from the automobile industry or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And his last words, he's running out of the place saying they poisoned me. Yeah. And he dies.

And he dies. Here it is. Did Stanley Meyer die because he knew how to turn water into fuel? But see, it would not, and I'm not casting any aspersions, but it wouldn't surprise me at all because again,

like why stop at sabotage? If you're a massive industry, if you're a massive corporation, and you know that, you know, gas, oil is your commodity, and you need people buying this oil, you don't want somebody coming up with a new technology that is going to make oil, at least gas, for cars obsolete. You don't want that. Look at this story. The crime scene is in Grove City, Ohio, Franklin County. With all the ingredients of setting in the American province that is dear to crime writers,

it's 21st March, 1998, the first day of spring, and four men are having a lunch in a restaurant. A waiter serves one of them some cranberry juice, perhaps, but we will never know for sure, chosen for dessert. This man, immediately after his first sip, suddenly gets up as if he's gone crazy, holds his hand around his neck. He loses his breath and runs out into the parking lot,

collapses to the ground and pronounces his last words, they poisoned me. And that's true? Like, that's corro true like that's yeah that's how he died this is the guy that figured out a way to have a car run on water i'll show you the news article that i was on is this one yeah but yeah i mean you know greed stops at nothing man i mean this is why we have to change that we have got to help people get off of greed because they will you will do potentially again I don't know what happened there but I fully believe that corporations at large maybe it was his ex-wife maybe she was like you know what

this dude I'm tired of his fucking bullshit I'm just gonna poison him and he thinks that the automobile industry's out to get him meanwhile his engine doesn't even fucking work. Did it work? What? Yeah. It's outside of Columbus. Oh, another one outside of Columbus. A bunch of assassins out there taking out inventors.

A crime writer's dream. Yeah, I guess so. It is a kind of a fucked up story if it's true. But if it's true, how come nobody back-engineered his engine and started? I don't know. I don't know. engineered his engine and started... I don't know. I don't know. But I definitely think that it's not beyond many corporations

to do nefarious things in the name of... Oh, for sure. Progress. In the name of, guys, we have to keep making more money. We can't stop. That can't stop. A hundred percent. And we rationalize it and we justify it.

And it's like, you know, the Vioxx. And it's like, well, we'll make $20 billion. We know we're going to have to pay out $7 billion, but we're still going to net $13 billion. And nobody will go to jail. So we're good. We'll do it. They don't even lose their jobs. This is what I'm saying.

It's crazy. It's insanity. And it's right there, right in front of us. And yet we still just kind of allow these things to go on because we're not collectively enough angry about it we're all angry at each other which is the the worst too much information to really take account of there's too many stories too many different things there's too much stuff going on like to be aware of all of these different scandals even just with pharmaceutical companies it's you would you would you'd lose your fucking mind you don't have the time no exactly but i but to have leaders that are on top of that stuff that we can trust which we don't definitely don't our politicians are all

bought and sold i mean even the ones that i like or want to like i don't trust that they have the ability to navigate all of that political scene and not end up fucking contorted by compromise by the time they get to a place of actual leadership where they can do things. You know what I mean? It's like, how can we trust this system when the system itself is fucking broken? So it doesn't matter how good or altruistic a soul you throw into that shark's den. They're fending it off. And then, of course, here comes like, hey, we're a lobby and we'd love to support you for your next campaign. And I know you really need the money.

And so maybe just don't talk about this or do talk about this. And it'll be, you know, the first taste is free. And then there's just slowly integrity just out the fucking window. So we got to legalize mushrooms. That's how we fix it. That would help. Spread it across the board, all of them. They'd get Rick Perry.

They'd get the government. The governor, Rick Perry. That guy's pro-mushrooms now? I think so. I was just talking to somebody about this recently. I think Rick Perry has turned a corner and understands that there is a lot of value as there is true value. And plenty of these clinical studies have been saying this. There's true value in allowing us to responsibly use these things to heal people's

minds and hearts and bodies. This is a good thing. Also, there's no good reason why it's illegal. And if it is legal, then we can study it and find out maybe it's not for everybody. And let's find out why. Because there's probably some people out there that shouldn't be taking it. And they're not going to know that. They're not going to know that if we keep it illegal. People are all going to think that you're keeping it from them and that they all deserve to use it. But meanwhile, there's probably people out there that are allergic to them.

Just like they're allergic to everything. Yeah yeah and there's no way to tell there's probably people out there that are hypersensitive there might be like a gene expression that you know they should probably keep away from mushrooms because of this or because of that like we don't know any of those things unfortunately because it's all in the dark but all we do know is that like the John Hopkins studies and all these different studies where people are showing beneficial results from giving psilocybin to people in these clinical settings. It's really interesting, man. It's really interesting stuff

because it's like changing the way people interface with life. And almost all of them report at least some alleviation of the anxiety that was evolved and the trauma that we're trying to work through yeah psilocybin has done some really deep healing in my life i think it's uh again something to be respected it's plant medicine you know but i think it's something that very much even from my own personal experience i think it's it has a lot of healing property it's a lot of mushroom users out here in austin i think they're everywhere bro there's a lot of them yeah i think they're they're everywhere you know but i think it's because people are waking up to that and not

being as afraid i guess i don't know i mean i i don't think we should be constantly judging and shaming and judging and shaming and judging and shaming which is what we've been doing for way too long about far too many things. We're not leading in that love. We're leading in that fear. So judge, shame, judge, shame, judge. You know, I mean, it's. Well, it's also the pharmaceutical companies don't want you to have things that are going

to cut into their profits, just like somebody would want to destroy that water machine because they're selling water. Certainly. So pharmaceutical drug companies absolutely don't want you developing these natural alternatives. Using natural plant-based. What is the stuff I've heard about you talk about before they have it done in Mexico, but you can't get it here that's like totally healed people? Ibogaine.

Ibogaine. Yeah. What is that? Is that like a plant? Ibogaine is what Hunter S. Thompson accused, was it Humphreys? Yeah, it was Humphreys? Yeah, it was Humphreys. During the presidential race, he made Humphreys go crazy because he wrote all these stories about them bringing in Brazilian witch doctors

and that he had a serious Ibogaine addiction. And if you've ever heard anything- He was accusing Humphreys of having an Ibogaine addiction? Yeah, he just made a fake rumor. Ibogaine addiction. And if you've ever heard anything- He was accusing Humphreys of having an Ibogaine addiction? Yeah. He just made a fake rumor. And Hunter would write things that weren't true at all. Oh, it was Ed Muskie. That's right.

The drug Hunter claimed Muskie was being treated with was a little known root called Tabernath Iboga or Ibogaine. That's right. So he admitted- I think he's on the Dick Cavett show see if you could find the the clip of him admitting it that's probably that is the clip that's what he looked like and so he starts talking about this Jamie Jamie I'll pull it up but that drug is a very very introspective drug it's not a fun experience. Everybody that I know that's tried it.

Yeah, it's rough. It's a rough ride. It's horrific. Yeah. But very beneficial after it's over. My friend Dakota Meyer did it, and he said it helped him a lot. He said, but it sucked while he was doing it. Like, he was, like, fucking angry that someone made him do that or suggested he would do that.

But then afterwards, he had another psychedelic experience and he realized the benefit of it. But it's, it's something that really helps people with addiction issues in particular for whatever reason. It's really good for helping people get off opiates, cigarettes and alcohol. I finally said, well, you made it all up. I couldn't believe that people really believe that musky was eating a big game I never said he was I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was which was true when I started the rumor

He was such a trip I said there was a rumor yeah walk yeah, it's true That's hilarious, oh, so tell people about your book man we're oh yeah uh so it's out now copy of it here i i don't that that did not send you one i'll get you one i'll i'll figure it out but oh there you go there's a picture of it yeah man so basically the long story short i had this whole breakdown i went to all this therapy on the heels of going to this life-saving therapy, like literally as I was finishing up my treatment in Connecticut, I got my, my eight, I had my agency. I told, Hey, I'm going to be off grid for a little while. Uh, so, you know, don't send me any auditions or anything like that. I got to do some healing. Cool, cool, cool. And then of course, two and a half weeks later, I get an email. Hey, so, um, there's a, there's a role in Shazam, which by the way, I had already passed on an audition

for that role of the Shazam. I never thought I way, I had already passed on an audition for that role of Shazam. I never thought I had a chance in hell of getting that job. But also, I was in a very dark place and not loving myself. So months prior, I'd passed on that audition. Now, I've done some fucking hard work. I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

And I get this email from my agency. And they're like, hey, there's another role in Shazam. It's a supporting role. It's like one scene. No pressure. And I just had this breakthrough. And I was like email from my agency and they're like, hey, there's another role in Shazam. It's a supporting role. It's like one scene. No pressure. And I just had like this breakthrough. And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to choose to love myself. And I'm basically finishing up my treatment right now. I feel good. I feel like I'm back on my feet a bit. And I came back from the gym one day, put my phone up, did one take, sent it to my agency. And like I'm not going to allow that to define. Whether it happens or not, it's not going to define who I am moving forward by, you know, a couple hours later, my phone's blown up and my agent's like, Hey man, they liked you so much for that role. And they also, but they

think you could be there. Shazam. They haven't cast it yet. And so long story shorter, a week later through all these different things, I wrapped up my therapy. I end up flying to LA. I camera test. And one week from the day of doing that first tape, I was cast as Shazam. So all of that, none of that would have happened. I fully believe that that door opened for me in my life because I first chose to go do the real hard work, which was to go and love myself, to figure out why I was not operating in a clear and healthy way. Right. And that was going to this therapy and, you know, really investing in myself in that way. And that changed energetically, spiritually, it shifted things.

And this, this presented itself and it came into my life. Greatest gift. One of the greatest gifts I've ever been given as an actor, like such a fun role and totally changed the trajectory of my career, the career that I was feeling like a total failure in. So when I'm promoting the movie, I tell my publicist, like, listen, I can't talk about the movie without adding, but I only got to do this because of this work and go into therapy. And so I talked about that on a couple of different podcasts and HarperCollins saw that and they're like, hey, we think that this could be a book.

I never intended to set out to write a book. I can barely, I have a hard enough time reading books, let alone sitting down to write a book. And I had wonderful help from the folks at Harper Collins. And you know, we, we, we, we made it through, but ultimately the book is, it's, it's about those three weeks in Connecticut and all of the traumas and things that happened to me throughout my life that put me in that place. And a lot of that is familial. My mom and stepdad, I go into a lot of that. My dad himself and my relationship with him, my relationship with other family, you know, going through school, being, you know, bullied relentlessly, all these things. It's all, it's just a real raw, vulnerable take of my life. But it's something that I felt like if we people like myself who

have a platform and who have also struggled greatly can just keep normalizing this shit. So many other people will feel not alone because with mental health, I mean, that's one of the hardest things you have to fight through because you really feel alone. You feel like nobody else is going to understand this. Nobody has ever understood whatever this feeling is right now, which is a total lie because people have been experiencing some form of depression and anxiety and sadness and anger and all these things since the beginning of man. But you, the lies are very real. Your mind is lying to itself. You know, like I love that quote. You're not the voice of your mind. You are the one who hears it. That was one of the biggest things I ever learned. And that's a great quote yeah uh it's from the untethered soul

a book that i haven't read but i know that quote from a great quote yeah it's great right and by the way and that's been said in many different ways by many many intelligent wise people resonates right yeah yeah but if you can realize that and you can realize that you're not always telling yourself the truth i mean for example you're driving like on some windy road. You ever have those moments where you're like driving along, you look down the cliff and you go, what if I just, what if I just turned right now? What would that be like? I never have that thought.

Never? Not like you want to end it. Like just running the scenario of what would happen if I drove off this road right now? Never? Nope. I go, don't go near the edge. That's my head. Don't go near the edge. Don't go near the edge. That's my head. Don't go near the edge.

Don't go near the edge. Listen, I think a lot of people have these weird thoughts. It's not like you want to do it. It's just like a weird, like I'll go to a show, like go to see some theater or something like that. And I've often had the thought of like, what if I just got up and ran and jumped up on the stage and ran through the back of the stage? What would that happen? I would never do it. Right.

But you have those random thoughts. Of course. That to me is a perfect example of your mind is going in weird places that you have no real control over so that means it's very capable of lying to you and the first lies that it digs in that darkness in those lies that is the depression and the anxiety everything saying you were alone nobody else understands so this is just my attempt to hopefully help as many people walk through the same flames that I did. And as already the feedback's been really lovely and people have

hit me up on my DMS and said, I have been struggling so badly. I read your book. It has totally changed my life to this point. I couldn't put it down. I'm, I'm, I'm going to therapy immediately. I'm, you know, trying medication for the first time. Whatever it is. And that is everything. Did you read the audio? I did, yeah. Beautiful. I did specifically because I knew you were going to ask me that question. You can't.

No, I wanted to. And I do other voiceover and shit anyway. So I was like, I think this would be really interesting to do. And it is a trip, man. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I'm sitting there in this booth. And also, you could do voiceover for Tangled or something. You do these long sessions, but you have intermittent.

You're saying little lines here and there or whatever. But to go and sit down and read the book, you go through four chapters. Your voice is fucked. It's gone. You've got to parse it out. But it was a really interesting experience and I Just hope that you know again at the end of the day if it does well Fucking great. I'd be so stoked

But when is it out? Is it out now? It's out now. Yeah, I came out last Tuesday and Yeah, so if anybody out there listening, you know, well, it's a short people buy it now And you look handsome on the cover. Look at that. Thanks, man. Well-dressed. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much for coming here.

Tell people your social media. At Zachary Levi on everything. Everything. Instagram, Twitter, all that jazz. Good luck with the book, man. Thanks, bro. Thanks for having me. It's been very good talking to you.

Yeah, you too. Bye, everybody. Thank you.