Zachary Levi is a vocal mental health advocate, an author, a Grammy Award winning singer, and an actor who is currently on strike. This beautiful and stimulating conversation spans topics including practical tips to more deeply love yourself and those around you, the reasons behind Hollywood’s aversion to ethical entertainment, and the disruptive proliferation of AI-generated art and what could be to come.

AUBREY: Zachary Levi is a mental health advocate, because he went through his own dark night of the soul. So, on this podcast, we get into that. And he's also an actor that's currently on strike, in large part because of the proliferation of the possibility of AI generated movies that could replace both writers and actors. So, we talk about how this disruptive technology may influence not only the acting industry, but all of the arts, and all of labor in general. So, this is a beautiful stimulating conversation with someone who fast became a good friend, Zachary Levi.

Starts after intro at 2:05
ZACHARY: Yeah, I watched this whole, it was on Netflix, but it was like a History Channel kind of about the history of samurai.
AUBREY: It's fucking crazy.
ZACHARY: Oh my God.
AUBREY: Samurai one is crazy, because we think of these samurais, like all of this, always honor and all. They were fucking brutal. And whether it was like a rival clan, or whether it was your wife, or whether it's like everybody.
ZACHARY: Oh my gosh, it was unbelievable, yeah, the amount of that. Yeah, the amount of backstabbing. But also, that was really cool about, I mean, for me, I just love history so much. Yeah, so learning about the samurai was cool, but learning about how Japan became a unified nation, which that was a trip, because I had no idea. Like I knew that there were eras of Japan and the shoguns and all that kind of stuff, but I didn't really know what that meant very much. I didn't have a lot of detail to it. So, yeah, to watch all that go down and how all those shoguns, they had their samurai armies, and then they would go and they'd get land and then they'd lose it. And then, ultimately, trying to go and take Korea and that totally fails.
AUBREY: Yeah, yeah, they're like, oops.
ZACHARY: We should have just ended. We should just stop it, Japan.
AUBREY: That's the fatal flaw of every conquer.
ZACHARY: Oh, absolutely.
AUBREY: They always go a little bit too far. And like, what about Russia? And Russia is like, no, no, no, son.
ZACHARY: Do you know Eddie Izzard, the comedian Eddie Izzard?
AUBREY: I guess that's German.
ZACHARY: He's a super funny English comic. He's actually a transvestite. He's been cross dressing for a long time. He has this really funny stand up special called "Dressed To Kill" that he did, just way before Netflix and all that shit, when HBO was the only place that had specials. It's fucking hysterical, the whole thing. You should definitely watch it. But he's got this whole bit where he's talking about people making these stupid decisions. And it's like, Napoleon's like, "I'm going to go get 'em. I'm going to go. It's a bit too cold." And then here comes Hitler, "I got a better idea. That was the same idea, same idea." It's so true, like Russia was that impenetrable. Also, though, oh, man, the amount of lives lost in all of those wards.
AUBREY: For real. And then oftentimes, you look at the stats, like Russians lost lives three to one.
ZACHARY: Oh, yeah, way more.
AUBREY: Just fucking brutal.
ZACHARY: But that's also partly because I think they were, I mean, they were people rich and equipment poor when the Nazis got to St. Petersburg, all that. They were like, well... I mean, what was that movie? "Enemy at The Gates" have you ever seen that? It was basically all about when the Germans got to St. Petersburg or something, and Oh, damn it, who's in it? Jude Law and Rachel Weiss. They play these Russian soldiers, and they're given nothing. It was like two of them would go in with one pistol and one clip. Two people with one pistol and one clip, and they would have to run into the war zone and hopefully find other dead Russian soldiers and get their weapons to keep moving through the war zone. Dude, that's insane. That is absolutely insane. The United States has never ever gone through anything like, I mean, the Civil War would be the only thing.
AUBREY: I mean, I guess probably the closest would be the Revolutionary War, right?
ZACHARY: I guess, yeah.
AUBREY: When we were way outgunned. Way outgunned.
ZACHARY: Isn't that insane that we did that shit? I mean, our forefathers but still. It's incredible.
AUBREY: Yeah, I mean, I think, did you see Hamilton? I'm sure you did.
ZACHARY: Oh, yeah, a couple of times.
AUBREY: Fucking so good, right? Even though that's slightly fictionalized, of course, and set to hip hop lyrics, but nonetheless, it gives you a flavor.
ZACHARY: Yeah, dude, you get history for sure.
AUBREY: It's really cool. And I think people, the instant reaction is to try and place our own moral understanding, to the moral understanding back then. And it doesn't mean that what every one of our forefathers was doing was right. But nonetheless, you can't also disclaim and discard all the noble things that they did. You have to be able to hold that as a paradox, not a contradiction, and just understand that there was amazing shit and there was horrible shit. And you can hold both and not actually have to discard all of the amazing, while holding, like yeah, they did not evolve morally to a point where we could actually say, now according to our standards, they were good people.
ZACHARY: Yeah, I completely agree. I think that this wave of, I mean, I don't know. I think it can be tied to the greater concept of wokeness or whatever. But I definitely think that there's this really unfortunate shift in people's minds where they are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They're saying, well, these people, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, they had slaves. And it's like, yeah, they did. Everybody did. Literally, everybody in the world did. Every single people group, every tribe. And by the way, this was from the beginning of human existence, everyone had slaves. I mean, slave itself as a word comes from Slav, a bunch of white people that were enslaved by the Moors. I mean, this is where that comes from, right? Is it a blemish on human existence? It's a fucking massive blemish on human existence.
AUBREY: Yeah, one of the biggest ones.
ZACHARY: Absolutely, we never should have ever treated each other with that little value. Although ironically, in some cultures, slaves were valued even more than like your neighbor, because people saw the utility in them or whatever. But nonetheless--
AUBREY: Which has its own darkness.
ZACHARY: Which has its own darkness. But nonetheless, the point being, we can absolutely look at things that our predecessors did in the past and say, oh, man, that was based on what we believe morality to be right now, that is absolutely not in line with what we believe to be right. However, you have to still look at it through the context of what historically has gone down in the world. And at that moment, at that time, globally, it was agreed that this was not a wrong practice. So, you can't just go and tear people down. I mean, because here's the thing. It's the most arrogant thing that any generation can do, which is to somehow come to the conclusion that you figured it out. Because 100 years from now, they might be looking at us saying, "You ate animals? You fucking horrible, disgusting. Why would you ever..." Now, by the way, I'm a huge animal advocate.
AUBREY: We ate some animals a couple of hours ago.
ZACHARY: No, no, no, for sure. But you understand what I'm saying, that there are even people right now that think that is the most, the worst thing that you can do is to eat an animal. And 100 years from now, who knows where morality will ultimately end up going, and then they'll gonna judge all of us based on what they've ultimately concluded 100 years from now. Like, we're all this, in process as humanity. Also, I would say, I think on like the individual level too, even in modern context, I think it's a really terrifying practice that when people do wrong, that somehow regardless of all the right they did, like speaking exactly to what we're talking about, but not even just generally to our forefathers, but to use an example. Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson, what he did with those kids is reprehensible. No one should ever do that, ever. And I think we can all collectively agree that he never should have done that. However, we're also capable of using empathy, and seeing that he himself was abused sexually and more throughout his life that led him to where he was as a human being, which doesn't excuse it, but it helps us to understand it. And more than that, before he did all of those things that we want to condemn him for, he brought so much fucking joy to this world. So much joy with all the music that still when you hear it, it brings you joy, and you want to dance to it. But then there's that thing in the back of your mind of, well, should I because of this and the other? And I go, "Man, I'm sorry, but I'm still going to dance to that music." And also, if somebody who I think even right now is a dipshit, who says a bunch of stupid things, if they say a good thing, if somebody tweets something, it's like, oh, that's true. Just because you retweet that thing doesn't mean you're agreeing with all the other stupid shit that person says. You're agreeing with that sentiment, because that sentiment is true. And even assholes can be right sometimes. It doesn't mean we can't listen to that.
AUBREY: Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time.
ZACHARY: Yeah, totally.
AUBREY: Because if you were smart enough to be wrong all the time, you're a fucking genius.
ZACHARY: Genius, yeah. Well, it's like, a broken clock is right at least twice a day. Again, it's really weird. Because if you go, I mean, there's been random things that I've reposted or whatever online, and people go, "Do you know the history of this person?" I'm like, yeah, actually, I don't. I don't know the fucking history of that person. But regardless, what they said, this statement in and of itself is truth. So what's wrong with that? Why can't we just accept that for what that is? Like, oh--
AUBREY: Yeah, that's a good example.
ZACHARY: Listen, I saw that documentary, that’s some crazy, wacky, weird shit, right?
AUBREY: Totally.
ZACHARY: I also know that he and all those people, at some point in that journey, were trying to hopefully do something good, trying to hopefully create a better society or whatever. But like most of those types of communities, gets misled, you putting too much power in one individual, or like a very small group of individuals, and they start getting drunk on their own power, and all the things that went on. But dude, that guy had all kinds of wisdom come out of his mouth. And they're universal wisdoms. They're wisdoms that came out of Aristotle's mouth and other mouths, you know what I mean? But it's still true, and we should be able to still be able to take that in.
AUBREY: Yeah, I mean, it's an important lesson to be able to hold. And also to hold too that we oftentimes get one side of a story that's told. Also, what we can see in the climate right now is that if you look up, let's say RFK, Jr. I'm wearing his shirt right now. If you look him up online, there is no chance in hell that anybody should ever support him or vote for him, if you actually listen to what is being said about him.
ZACHARY: On the mainstream media, yeah.
AUBREY: On the mainstream media, there's no way. But at the same time, there's another reality, there's another truth, that if you actually peer in and you listen to him, and you feel him, then you actually get a whole different understanding of what that is. And I think we're all subject at certain times to a particular narrative being projected that isn't reality. So, we also have to both use our own kind of mind and heart and morality and ethics and code to understand where we stand. And then also hold all the stories lightly, because as it's often said, history is written by the victors. Or history is written by the victims. However, history is being told, especially in the time we're in now, history is being aggregated, reality is being aggregated by the mainstream. And then, literally, projected out with a very singular narrative with some outliers, and an agenda behind it. So, it's an interesting time where the epistemic commons, where we get to understand how to make sense of reality, epistemic being that which we know, how do we find out what we know? It's so muddy, and it's so strange. And there's reality tunnels that just lead people further and further down delusional paths. So, we're in a time where that's just going to increase as well, especially with, now we're going to have deep fakes are going to start hitting everywhere.
ZACHARY: Oh, dude. It's crazy.
AUBREY: It's already started. But this wave is just, this is just the froth before the tsunami comes, where there's literally going to be videos of everybody saying or doing anything, and anybody you want to see in a pornographic movie, sure. You want to fucking see Scarlett Johansson in a double penetration? Great. Here you go, here's a fucking deep fake. This is just the reality of where we're going. We're going to be able to actually see anything and then we're going to have to make sense of it in our own mind, and we're not quite equipped for that.
ZACHARY: Yeah, we're kind of fucked, man. I try to think of myself as a pretty optimistic person. At the very least, I think I'm a realist, but there's a lot of moments where if I really just start thinking about like just extrapolating out where we are now, five years from now, 10 years from now, particularly when it comes to technology, I mean, "Black Mirror" should be required viewing for all people. It is a very real kind of crystal ball into where all of these technologies can take us. And as far as Unreal Engine and all that various graphic engines that are, the kind of top of the heap right now that are creating all of these various
AUBREY: Deep fakes?
ZACHARY: Well, not just deep fakes, but all the CG and all the movies and all the video games. I mean, we're at the point where it's essentially photorealistic. I mean, if it's not there there, it's like right there, which means--
AUBREY: You'd have to have a forensic analysis to determine the difference.
ZACHARY: Exactly. And to me, that's where, like, Scarlett Johansson DP is something that people might want to go and fantasize about, and deep fake could allow for that. But I'm worried about, well, Scarlett's worried about that, as she should be. As she should be. I don't think she should be involved in all of that. But, I think that what we really need to be worried about is, even when Trump, not this time, when he had to go to court and get arrested or whatever, but when they went to Mar-A-Lago a little while ago, whatever, I don't know. He had to go somewhere, I can't remember what the fuck it was. But then there were all these clearly AI kind of illustrations, but they were almost like people were sharing them around. Like the pope with the big, white puffy jacket, it looks kind of like a real photo. And people just shared it around. And they're like, oh, look at this, look at Trump getting arrested. But it wasn't at all. It was just AI making some illustrations. Now, it's going to be impossible to determine when you're watching a video of somebody doing something illegal. Even law enforcement will be shown these things, and they'll have to react on it. It's you or I or somebody else who are at some place, and it's like, "Oh, my God, whatever, they lit that building on fire." It's like, no, we weren't involved at all. All they needed was somebody else to go do that. And by the way, actually soon, it won't even require having an actual human being that you deep fake a face on. You can just build all of it in animation. You can animate the entire, I mean, my entire industry right now, well, almost the entire industry. But the writers and actors were all on strike, in large part because AI is going to replace all of us. It's already starting to replace--
AUBREY: You think so?
ZACHARY: Absolutely.
AUBREY: No way. I bet no, bro.
ZACHARY: Absolutely. Here's the thing. It requires two things. It requires the technology being capable of doing it, and the technology right now is capable of replacing some of our jobs, and it's two years away from replacing twice as many, and it's two more years from replacing eight times as many, and in 10 years, graphics and everything will be so unbelievably photorealistic that a studio need only prompt, I want a movie that looks and feels like this about this. And in a computer, will generate something. And people go, "Yeah, but it's a computer, and it won't feel like a human did it." I don't believe that's, for years now, they've been using AI for other pieces of art including classical music. I read about this in either "Sapiens" or in "Homo Deus", Yuval Harare wrote these books, one after the other. But he talks about AI. This was years ago he's talking about this. And they had computers with AI. And they would feed in a bunch of classical music to the computer. And then they asked the computer, it was kind of a rudimentary AI program at that point. But they said, create a concerto, and it did. And then they brought it and a human made concerto to a bunch of classic music snobs. And they said, which one was made by a human? And almost to the person, they chose the robot, the computer made. So, I do hear this argument of robots, computers will never have the same human soul.
AUBREY: So, here's the thing. I hear that argument, I receive it, and I'm open to its possibility. Here's the thing. So, let's imagine, then we're going to that scene in "Interstellar" where Matthew McConaughey loses 30 years, and he has to go view the tapes of his daughter. I actually had him on the podcast, and I interviewed him about that scene. And he has a whole cool story about it that you're only going to do this take once, because everything after that is acting. Because he was really dropping--
ZACHARY: Yeah, you could tell.
AUBREY: You could really drop it into the emotions of it.
ZACHARY: That scene gets meme'd to death, because it's so emotional, and he's crying and you can feel it. It's powerful.
AUBREY: My objection to this idea that AI is going to be able to--
ZACHARY: Replace us all.
AUBREY: Replace us all, is, I just do not believe that AI will be able to transmit these intangible qualities that are expressed through human emoting in a sufficient way. I think they'll be looking for the different signs and things. And if that's incorrect, wow, that's a weird world.
ZACHARY: Well, so listen. Right now, it can't. But when you're thinking about futures, technology futures, you can't think, you've got to think five years from now, 10 years from now, because it's exponential technological growth. So, right now, no. I mean, if you ask for images of human beings, you end up with six fingers on their hands or weird shit like that. But computers are exponentially getting smarter, more powerful, faster, cheaper, all of these things. And so, their ability to then scan all of content, all of it, and quite literally scan these scenes from "Interstellar" and anything else that was an incredibly powerful moving scene that other actors have done, and metabolize all of that, and then synthesize something out of that that looks and feels just like that, I think it's round the corner. But here's the other thing. Will it feel like humans? Yes. Is the technology capable of doing it? Yes, I think these are true. The third point, and I think this is where we have to hold the line, ultimately. And I think even if we hold the line, it's still going to be both things. Because people say, "Well, I don't think it's going to happen, because people are still going to want movies made by humans." And I go, okay. I mean, listen, I want to go make a movie studio, living community kind of situation. That's why I moved out to Austin, and I think there will be even more value to something like that, because we will go into a phase of, hey, there's all that content that's not made by humans now. So, support literally human made art, we can do that. So, I think there's a hope for that. But the same studios that are trying to grind us all down right now and not pay us good residuals, I mean, literally, our contracts are garbage and have become more and more garbage over the decades. Which is really unfortunate, because there's so much fucking money to be shared if CEOs weren't making 250 times what their employees are making. Anyway, we can talk about that later. But the point is, these people are really good at maximizing their bottom lines and making more and more and more money. And what they're going to do is, technology, it's already getting there. Right now, if you need a copywriter, you don't need a copywriter. You can absolutely do that with Chat GPT. You need illustrations, you don't need an illustrator, you can use Wonder or Midjourney. And I don't think people are realizing we are seeing the beginning. There's a Napster on the music industry. This shit is happening, it is happening. So, what's ultimately going to happen is again, studio executives will have technology powerful enough to just prompt as they want. Write me a script about a bunch of kids who get in a plane crash in the Amazon jungle, and they have to survive in the Amazon for a month, which is a true story by the way that recently happened. But something like that. And then they go, and I want it written like--
AUBREY: A Guy Ritchie film.
ZACHARY: Like a Guy Ritchie film and I want it directed like a Steven Spielberg film, Enter. And it will populate a full fucking movie. It will be able to do that. And here's the thing, but here's the thing. Because the last factor is, will humans decide to support humans or not? And all that comes down to, unfortunately, as we all know, it's fucking money, man. And the studios will undercut human made everything. Not even just our industry, every industry. Food.
AUBREY: But then there's also, there's going to be the democratization of this technology, which is then going to allow anybody to tell a visual story, which will then undercut the studios. Potentially.
ZACHARY: Right, but here's the problem is that we need other humans to not opt into these programs. Because as much as--
AUBREY: Why? Just let the studios--
ZACHARY: No, no, no. Listen, I don't know what the full actual solution is. But check it out. Because I've heard this too, and this is happening right now. It's other creative people, but maybe who aren't trained or have any access in being a director or being a writer. Well, now they can sit at a, or they're not good as a painter. They love paintings, but they don't know how to paint. So, they go to a keyboard, and they say, make me this painting with these ideas that they have. Now, one can make the argument and many ones do that they're the artists now, right? It's their creative idea. And I would say yes, absolutely. That is their creative idea. However, when AI, when it goes from being merely a tool in the toolbox of a human to replacing humans, that's where the problem is. And if a young person sitting at home who's super creative, but has no actual, let's say, creative skills, decides that they want to go use this very powerful technology to go make their own video games or movies or whatever, on one hand, you go wow, it's fucking amazing. If I was a kid, and I had the ability to just use my imagination and create whatever I wanted, fucking incredible. But also, you've just now replaced thousands of jobs. So, where do those people go and what do they do? Because now all you need is one person per thousand jobs to replace all those people. One neighborhood of kids that have nothing better to do will sit around and just take everyone's jobs away. And you go--
AUBREY: And it's not just the actors. It's the grips, it's fucking everybody who's involved in a production.
ZACHARY: It's everyone. Yeah, it's hundreds, literally hundreds of people that are on set and hundreds of people that are back in the office. All those people, it all gets erased and replaced, because one person had an idea.
AUBREY: And so, the beautiful part of that is, best story wins. That's the beautiful part. I'm not saying it's the only part of the story. But there is an idea that you could say, all right, well, we're in the place, just like YouTube content. Best content wins, there's algorithms that can kind of be manipulated, et cetera. But ultimately, people are already enabled to be content creators, the best content wins on YouTube, right? This could get to a place where the best cartoons, especially, I think, like animators, like Pixar and those jobs are going to be really suspect. This is a fucking problem. I'm not disagreeing that this is a problem. But it's also like, how cool that anybody can make a story and the best story will win? And there'll be stories that emerge from some kid in the fucking Bronx or some kid in like inner city Chicago, who has just a fucking great perspective on a great story and is able to put together at least the first stage in animation, that is a full feature film, and it's fucking amazing. And then it wins an Oscar or some shit. And he's like this 20-year-old kid from Chicago who never would have had a chance, never would have gotten into the guilds, never would have been given their break. So, there is some beauty to this.
ZACHARY: That's what I was saying. On this hand, there is that beautiful narrative. I hear it now, even now. And it makes sense, because you're like, this person who wouldn't have otherwise been able to be a part of doing that now can. That's wonderful in a respect. But then all of a sudden, now what it took, the time, the energy, the discipline to be an artisan, to learn how to be a camera operator, to go through all the stages of like, you're a camera loader, then you're a second AC, then a first AC, then you're a camera operator, then you get to be a DP. Or starting at a PA and becoming a director, or being an actor and doing small roles and making your way to doing large ones. I mean, the thing is, this person will just, not only will they eliminate all these jobs, but they didn't have to work for any of it. And I think that will start doing a very strange thing to our creative sensibilities, but also just really quick, I don't think--
AUBREY: Also just really quick. I want to pause this with a short bracket, and wonder if my neuro linguistic programming, when he said DP, did you think of Scarlett Johansson?
ZACHARY: No.
AUBREY: I want everybody to have an honest inquiry with themselves right now. You don't have to share your answer.
ZACHARY: Just hold it inside. By the way, Scarlett Johansson would make an amazing director of photography DP. We can leave her out of this double penetration nonsense. She's a good woman. She's a good woman.
AUBREY: Yes, I agree, I concur.
ZACHARY: That's a fun tangent. What was I saying? Oh,what the fuck was I, Oh, yeah. You said the best idea wins. And what I would say is, I wish that was the case. But it's not the best idea always. In fact, often it's the cheapest. And that's where I think the studio will undercut us. That's where the studios will go, "Listen, we've got this technology" Not even just the studios, but these other people. They'll go, "We have the technology, we don't need to hire all these grips and electricians and hair and makeup and wardrobe and props and set design."
AUBREY: For sure the studios will.
ZACHARY: We don't have to hire any of them. But also, the kid in Chicago. Because they can't. The studios will do it because they're super cheap. The kid in Chicago will do because he doesn't have the money. But either way, you're replacing all of these jobs. And at the end of the day, what will happen is, in order to create a movie with all those real human beings, it will cost you a certain amount of money, right? That's sunk cost, that is employing people and health benefits and all of the things. And so, that movie will cost X amount of dollars. The studios will go in, throw some prompts in, and make a movie that looks, feels, sounds just as good if not better, based on where the technology is. And not even just animated, real life but animated through CG, through Unreal Engine. Let's say our movie as humans cost $20, like a normal movie price right now. They'll come in and be like, "Five bucks." And then what do humans do? This is where our major I think inflection point is, which is, it's this monetary, we are so conditioned to want to get things for a deal. We're so conditioned. We live in this consumable disposable world. We don't value the things that we buy anymore, because we don't have to. Fast fashion. It's like one of the worst things in the world, polluting on the highest levels. Because why not? Because, yeah, this cost you 20 bucks, and it'll rip and you'll just throw it away and you'll get another one. As opposed to back in the day, when we had very limited wardrobes because you had shit that actually lasted for a while. You sew and you don it. But so entertainment is becoming the same thing. Reality television, it is literally poison. I mean, honestly, like I can't stress it enough. I know a lot of people that I know, like friends or even family that watch a lot of reality television, guys, fuck it. Maybe you do. Stop it. It's the worst. All reality television is, is filler. And by the way, and it's filler, it's time-kill where it hooks you, because you get put in a place where you get to be a judge. And at best, you're judging competition reality where people are singing, have talent. You're like, "Alright, well, I fucking, I like that person," and they can move on. But at worst, and what most reality television is is people sit there and they watch "The Bachelor" or whatever. And they go, "These fucking idiots." And everyone just kind of silently or very vocally judging the people on television, because what idiots would want to go and do that? And now, by the way, all of them are all just trying to catch clout anyway to become an influencer, so they can all just sell more fucking bullshit online. It's cancer. Reality television is a fucking cancer. But it's so cheap, and people keep eating it like drug candy. And it's rotting everyone's brains. That has now started leaching into actual narrative content. And you go, you look at Netflix or Amazon, plenty of these streamers or whatever, there's so much just garbage filler narrative shows now. Just stupid fucking romcoms, that people just sit there and it's like a fucking time kill. It's like, goddammit. Where's the actual artistry? Where's the time spent making something that actually means something? We don't. Just don't.
AUBREY: Well, then what needs to happen in conjunction with this technology, this rapid rise in technology that's changing the whole landscape is there needs to be an equally rapid rise in our consciousness, ethics and moral compass.
ZACHARY: Amen.
AUBREY: And that has to happen across all vectors, including, human work product, and also safety, and also, all of these things. And I think this is why these kinds of top-down totalitarian, authoritarian, control everything, surveil everything, be able to shut down bank accounts, whatever you want to do, this is part of their answer. But really, all of this answer is, radically lacking the faith in human beings. I guess you could look at history of humans and say there's a reason to not have faith in humans, but I do. I have faith in humans. I really do. And I believe that if we start speaking the truth, and we start having people model that level of respect, that's one of the reasons why I'm fucking supporting Kennedy so much. I believe that what he's going to do in office is going to be really important, but also what he's going to model. Like what he shares just privately in conversations with me, the lessons he's instilled upon his kids, he's someone, I was texting him last night, he's someone that I genuinely admire, that holds this kind of moral compass, and this willingness to stand in the fray and this courage in real life, that I think people can emulate and model. I don't think we've had that. I think people are underestimating the effect that that will have, the ripple that it will have, when honesty and integrity, and like a true moral compass. It's King Arthur shit. This is the "Return of the King". This is fucking Aragorn coming back to the fucking throne of Gondor.
ZACHARY: We love good "Lord of the Rings" raps. We love it.
AUBREY: This is what this is. And I don't think people get how significant this moment is, to really have someone who's leading with their heart and able to speak, honestly. Truly, honestly. So, I have hope that humans will be able to evolve as quickly as technology. And I think the psychedelic renaissance that's underway is also going to help facilitate that. Now, there's going to be some casualties in that, people are going to spin out, and they're going to have difficult times with this, of course. But that's already happening with pharmaceuticals all the fucking time.
ZACHARY: At a far larger rate as well.
AUBREY: Exactly, exactly. I mean, we've already dealing with that, and it's not having the positive results. All of these antidepressants that all of the clinical trials are showing, with psilocybin research and MDMA research. So, we're entering a very interesting time where there's like two different forces. There's consciousness, there's also a revivification of people's understanding of God, spirit, source, whatever that is, that's starting to be felt. It's going to affect and touch every different category. I don't know if we're going to be able to stop technology from doing all of these things. But we can respond, and I think one of the ways we can respond, and I know there's probably a lot of stuff for you to touch on, but I want to cover this. What I also see is there's going to be an attraction to the analog the more things become digital. So, I could easily see plays like "Shakespeare in the Park" becoming wildly popular. Like I did some theater productions when I was in University of Richmond which was fucking incredible.
ZACHARY: Heck yeah.
AUBREY: Yeah, I did "Mother Courage" by Bertolt Brecht, and I did Commedia dell’arte like improv comedy.
ZACHARY: Bro, we're so getting you back on a stage. We are going to do it.
AUBREY: It was the best, man.
ZACHARY: That's right. It's honestly my favorite drug ever, and I've done plenty, like a lot.
AUBREY: It was the best.
ZACHARY: Yeah, the dopamine that you get, literally. And by the way, and I only know this now having learned so much, like the Huberman lab and stuff about things like dopamine, but holy shit, man. Because I've been a theater actor since I was a kid through school plays and mini theater and all that. And I've done Broadway a couple times. The fucking amount of dopamine that my body gets rushed with, no wonder I've been literally running after dopamine my whole life, because I've been getting it in these massive shots every time I do a live show. But going back to some of the things you were talking about, which I think are so well put. First of all, revivification. Fantastic word. Also, like I said, I mean, I really do think I'm an optimist, though I fall to being a realist, and sometimes that ends up bringing me to a pessimistic spot. But, I also believe in our ability to absolutely make it through all of this. It will be gnarly, it's going to be gnarly. And I think plant medicine is absolutely going to be a critical part of how we get through all of this, because people have got to become decoupled from the bad programming that we've all been given in our own personal journeys and traumas, societal traumas, what our governments and industries have been doing to us, and the ways in which they've been manipulating us, and lying to us for decades and decades and decades. Like all that stuff is going to be gnarly, but we're going to get through it. I absolutely believe that we can, too. But I do think it's important, I think part of how we get through it, is we have to be able to be very real about calling out the bullshit, which can be very negative sometimes. Like me going on a rant on reality television, right? I'm going to keep fucking shouting that from the rooftops, because I think people need to wake up. Once you can click and be like, oh shit, maybe I am watching too much reality television. That's where you can start making your way out of it. That's where you can start hopefully elevating and awakening and enlightening and not be wanting that. But if you're not aware of the thing that you're addicted to, if you're unaware of it, it's going to keep you there. Even if you're lightning in other ways, you know what I mean? And we all have areas that are our blind spots and all have areas that we're strong in.
AUBREY: Yeah, I mean, I watch almost zero TV, and I think there is nuance, and there is some discernment about what type of, like, I think carte blanche reality TV, that's probably an overreach. Because I just watched, and there's probably, I think there's one more episode coming up, but I just watched "Hard Knocks". Aaron Rodgers, one of my best friends. And it's reality TV. It's showing the Jets preseason training camp. However, talking to Aaron who wouldn't fucking lie to me, and is in the thing, like, they just they played it straight. They showed what was happening in training camp. And they do weave some stories where they get you, there's this one guy Cap who like did an M&M fucking thing at the rookie show, and everybody freaked out. You get to love this guy. And he's writing, like live your dreams on his fucking little wrist wraps, and you're like, I hope you make it. And then next episode, he gets cut. So they do some of those things but it's real. He really got fucking cut, and he was really a fucking awesome kid.
ZACHARY: Yeah, and they didn't know he was going to get cut. They were following him before he got cut.
AUBREY: Exactly, and they're following all the rookies that are on the bubble, because that's part of the thing. But, however, so I'm going to be watching every Jets game, I'm going to be there at probably at least half of them.
ZACHARY: Cool, I'm coming. Let’s go.
AUBREY: Yeah, let's go, let's go. But now, I know the players. And now like, when I watch someone make a tackle, when I watch Cue Ball make a tackle, I'll be like, "That's right, Cue." I don't fucking know him, I only know Aaron. And I watch Wilson make a catch, I'll be like, "Yeah, that's what's up."
ZACHARY: 100%, but to me, look and maybe it's nuanced, but I really don't think it is. I really think there's a significant difference. That is a docu series. A docu series or a documentary, though it is documenting reality of sorts, right? By the way, reality television started as docu series. The first reality TV show was arguably, I think most people attribute it to "Cops". And that was a docu series. That was real cops going on real calls, with body cams on or whatever. And this is what you're watching. And people were fucking enthralled with it, right? Because it's like, oh my God, this isn't scripted, it's not a narrative thing. There's no producing involved. Its just your fucking cameras on real life. And then what really kicked it off was the real world. Because we were all watching MTV back when MTV was actually fucking good and awesome, and actually had music on it. But that was the beginning of their downfall. It was the beginning of all of our downfall, including MTV's, when the real world started. Because then all of a sudden, oh, we don't just have to do music. We can do this type of content. And then what happened with the real world is, it became unreal. It became scripted. As did all reality television because it's all manipulated, it's all produced. And a lot of people just don't fucking know this stuff. But part of what I think is so dangerous about it, is it I really do believe that it is suddenly redefining what reality is. Because if we all keep calling something reality, as its name, even though it is not actually reality, we start bending in that and people are. People literally watch these shows. Again, how many people watch "The Bachelor" that are thinking, oh, I want to go do that so I can go become an influencer. What are we doing? This isn't the thing anymore. Have a show about influencers then, I don't know. But everyone's sitting around eating their popcorn, like, "Is Jessica going to get laid in the hot tub tonight?" What the fuck are we talking about? So, I think there's absolutely room, always, for docu series and documentaries.
AUBREY: Yeah, I think that's a really good distinction.
ZACHARY: I love that shit. I love it. And by the way, it's so true. You watch "Hard Knocks" and you get to know all these guys that you wouldn't have otherwise known. It's like the Netflix F1 series. I mean, F1 was kind of a niche sport that only super rich people gave a shit about. No one was really showing up to these races,
AUBREY: There are some people in Italy that are like, "Fuck you, bro."
ZACHARY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in certain countries, it's definitely bigger. But still, that series made F1 100 times more popular around the world. I mean, Austin's a great example. If you looked at the grandstands before that show came out to after the show came out, it's unbelievable how many people are just into it. And it's because there's a human story there that can connect to a human now. It's not just a bunch of guys that you don't know their lives, you don't know what they're about. By the way, you don't even see them. They're wearing a fucking helmet the entire time in a little car. So, where's the connection? Well, now all of a sudden, there's a docu series that follows them around. You go, "Oh, that's who that is. And that's who his team is. And this is the drama between this team and that team and this driver and that driver." Now there's something there. But it's not, I mean, hopefully, I don't know how much of that is manipulated. I don't think a lot of it is. I hope it's not.
AUBREY: This is where it starts to get into a little bit of nuance, right? Because there may be some slight manipulation, and also an entry into a world that we wouldn't have normally got. What is that, "Deadliest Catch" let's take this. This is one that has a little bit of nuance, because those waves are fucking real.
ZACHARY: Yeah, the danger is super real. But they were also manipulated.
AUBREY: And they were also definitely manipulating what fucking Captain Sig was saying, and you could see, actually, because I did watch that show a little bit back in the day. I wouldn't like time my fucking day to watch it. But it was like, "I'll fucking check a little Deadliest Catch." And then you started to see, now dropping an episode here there. And then you start to see oh, this is bullshit. They're just creating a fight between the captain and the co-captain, and this fuckin thing. It's this complete horseshit. And then they would cut to, oh, fuck, there's a big storm coming. And these fishermen have fucking families. And this gets real real all of a sudden. The only other show that I can recall now, kind of getting into is, "So You Think You Could Dance?" But all of these things have, at some point, a real moment, at some point where a dancer has to hit a stage and has to either fucking bring something magical out or not. And then there's all the judging and there's all the bullshit that's associated with it. There's the voting, and the natural judgment. "Oh, this fucking guy can't dance." You try to dance, motherfucker. You try to fucking sing before you talk shit about this fucking singer.
ZACHARY: That's what I was saying. Reality television at best. Because I think it's all, ultimately, if you break it down psychologically, I really do believe that essentially, all of reality television is some form of us being able to sit and judge. And I think at best, it's the competition. It's oh, these are people with real skills, and they're competing for something and you get to vote or at least watch and have your favorites or whatever. Like, okay.
AUBREY: It's almost like sportifying.
ZACHARY: It is, a little bit. Because there's something, there's a metric to it. There's something to it. right? It's subjective with the arts, right? It's not quite the meritocracy that sports is, but nonetheless
AUBREY: I mean, rhythmic fucking gymnastics. It seems hella subjective to me. Everybody's fucking throwing balls and catching them with their butt cheeks.
ZACHARY: Ribbons and all the things. "They're catching them with their butt cheeks." It's so true.
AUBREY: It's incredible. It's like, you all win.
ZACHARY: We all win. But so that, I do think we need, I think as human beings, we absolutely are way too numbed out. And reality, competition shows, and even sports. Bro, I love sports. I could watch Sports Center on loop. In fact, I have. I've watched it on the hour, every hour. I'm like, I think I've seen this like yeah, I know this segment. I want to watch that top 10 again, I love sports. But I also know that it has become particularly in the US, although it's pretty much everywhere in the world now, it is so commercialized, it's so commoditized, it's so pop culture that we will sit, I don't want to use the word waste, but oftentimes, if we could be doing something more productive with our day, something more productive for the world, we won't. Because we're choosing to, now, hold on it, do we have to have entertainment? Yes. Because that is a lubricant of society. I mean, literally, I'm an actor. That is what I do. I'm trying to bring in entertainment. So, I'm not trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm just saying that we need to be more mindful, more intentional about the content that we are constantly shoveling into our brains and into our hearts, because it is energetic. It does affect us. It is real. And I think that the more we can try to get away from scripted reality television produced nonsense, and move more toward, either, by the way, again, sports meritocracy, I liked it. Because I do also think that sports pushes us as humans to want to be better bodies, right?
AUBREY: It can be unbelievably inspiring.
ZACHARY: Yeah, it’s very inspiring.
AUBREY: You see someone dig deep. You watch Jordan's flu game, you watch Dwayne Wade in the finals versus the Maverick, and you're like, holy shit. Or even Vince Young at the Rose Bowl against the Trojans. You watch someone bend reality to his will. And she's like, holy shit, this is possible. One person can take all of reality and fucking change it with force of intent. And you're like fucking A, I'm inspired.
ZACHARY: The most insane warping of reality that I think I've ever seen, I don't know. I mean, there's been so many incredible moments. But I was at game seven, Lakers Celtics when, I mean, the last time they basically had at Staples, Kobe and Powell and Derek Fisher. And it was that point four shot where Derek barely got the ball through. But prior to them winning that game. Again, we're game seven at Staples, all the Lakers fans, we're crestfallen because they were down by 12 points, and there was only like I don't even know. It was like 12 seconds or there was like no time. I can't remember exactly what, but it was no time. We all thought we were losing his game. And then all of a sudden, all of that just manifests and it all materialized. Then Derek shot, and everyone lost their goddamn mind. Of course, you would imagine they would, but we did. It was the most, like you can't even believe what you're witnessing. It's beyond real. It is surreal to watch that happen. And that is something that you can get from sports. And I also think you can get from really good scripted narrative art. Whether it's music, movies or television shows.
AUBREY: Dude, I'll tell you, man. I watched Guy Ritchie's "The Covenant" recently. Have you seen that one? It came out like three months ago. I fucking wept for the last like hour of that whole movie. Not because something sad happened. But because I was so inspired by the ethics and virtue, and it's all about the bond. So the bond is sacred. And so we live in a postmodern culture where everybody's saying there's no such thing as ethics or value or God or this bond. And this movie is just like, "Oh, yes, there is." It tells a fictionalized story of the relationship between sergeants and operators with their translators in Afghanistan, and the bond between one particular one, loosely based on some reality.
ZACHARY: Who's in it?
AUBREY: Oh, fuck, Jake Gyllenhaal?
ZACHARY: Oh, Jake Gyllenhaal. That's a Guy Ritchie movie. I did not know that.
AUBREY: Guy Ritchie's dialogue is just so fucking, it's so epic. So, that's a perfect example of something that was so additive to my life, and also so cathartic, and also made me be like, yes. I believe something about the world that I know I can take with me. And the same thing happened with "300" when I watched it. The same thing happened with "Braveheart" when I watched it. "Braveheart" fucking changed my life.
ZACHARY: It is a life changing movie. Mel Gibson crushed that movie.
AUBREY: I remember running on the beach saying like, and I was 12 or something when that happened. I'm running on the beach, I'm going, "Fucking William Wallace wouldn't stop right now." William Wallace wouldn't stop right now. And I just run a little extra hard.
ZACHARY: Half your face blue.
AUBREY: For sure. But yeah, so there's so much beauty that can come from these different things. And it's really, how do we capture, keep all of that. And then also navigate all of these other territories. I think also, as many movies as they make about Cyrano de Bergerac, there's nothing like Cyrano being played by a great actor and you watching that on fucking stage, and you're feeling the transmission of that. I saw that live, and again, changed my fucking life. And I've watched all the "Roxanne". I watched him and his fucking version, and I thought Peter Dinklage did a great job in the new Cyrano. I think they had a couple of misses there on my perspective because they just did some things, but I thought it was really cool. That, as a little person, he got, instead of the big nose, like, fucking that was a cool artistic choice. But there is something, I think that there'll be an appreciation for the analog that's going to come back.
ZACHARY: Listen, I don't disagree with that. I think it's already coming back. Actually, hold on before that though, I was going to say, similarly in the way that movies like Braveheart inspire us, something that, all that reality, all that stuff, none of that will ever entertain you or make you laugh like an incredibly scripted, performed directed comedy. There's things that move us this way, and there's things that move us this way. And comedy, really good comedy, there's silly stupid moments that happen in reality television or things that you even laugh at that are like guilty pleasure nonsense. Like watching "Ghostbusters" or, I mean, "Groundhog Day" to me is kind of a perfect movie. Bill Murray, anything. But those things require real artistry, right? And then go into your point of, yeah, let's get his microphone. Let's get that. It's a little loose. Yeah.
AUBREY: It's getting limp.
ZACHARY: Nobody needs it flaccid
AUBREY: Flaccid mic stand. There we go. Thanks, Derek.
ZACHARY: Yeah, there you go.
AUBREY: You always need a good fluffer on set. You were telling me about that earlier, with your side job.
ZACHARY: Derek the fluffer. But yeah, dude, listen, I think even right now, it's cool. There's this desire, I think that smartphones, the internet was one thing. Actually, then going back to another comment you were making, which is, we can't stop progress. We can only hope to guide progress, right? But that requires most of us all agreeing and working together. Like with AI, it's split. Some people are like, let it go. And other people are like this will destroy us all. Like some of the smartest people in the world are saying, if we don't check AI right now, forget about jobs being destroyed, the world will be gone. We're looking at Skynet Terminator shit, whatever. I don't know, I hope to God that's not the reality. And I'm going to choose that that's not the reality. Let's manifest that.
AUBREY: Look, you saying, I hope to God, I think that's the thing that the algorithms aren't accounting for is, I have a deep relationship with God. I do.
ZACHARY: Me too.
AUBREY: So, God does not factor in the algorithms, and that's the thing. I think there's going to be this emergence of this thing that we can't even imagine that is like a necessary miracle, a necessary sequence of miracles. Not exactly in the biblical way that things were just showing like a flex miracle that was cool for, but actually, existential miracles, I really like, that's what allows me to stay, you could call it optimistic, you could call it unrealistic, but I also I have a gnosis of the Divine. And it's not a personal gnosis like God has chosen me for it. No, none of that shit. It's a fully democratized access that we all have, if we open ourselves, complete, egalitarian, access to the Divine, where I just have this faith. And I guess that's what's interesting is I see all of this, and I actually don't disagree with anybody who's saying all of these different things and looking at the algorithm. We're in a fucking tight spot. We're in a tight spot. And if you don't have faith in God, we're fucked. It sounds like a crazy, fundamentalist claim. But it's not for me.
ZACHARY: Bro, I echo that claim, I am absolutely with you. And by the way, I think that the same poll that we have, going back to this desire to almost return to the analog, it's all tied to a similar place. I think that through technology, technology has replaced spirituality. Technology has replaced, like science has come in and a very, let's say, what was initially probably pushed into a very like scientifically, atheistic, kind of all right, like--
AUBREY: Materialist, reductionist.
ZACHARY: Exists all of that, right? But humans have found it wanting. Deep down in us we are spiritual beings, because we are spirits. This is a meat bag we all walk around in, but that's not us. We are inside of whatever this is. And in fact, this is more bacteria than it is even us anyway. So there is this soul, there is this spirit, there is this energy that is connected to source, to God, to the universe, however you want to slice that up. But I think that's all the same fucking thing. And this concept of prayer, that spiritual people have been doing since the beginning of being human beings, shocker. The Joe Dispenza's of the world are now showing through science, that it's really fucking real. If you have intentional faith, and you believe in an outcome, and not wish for the outcome, but believe in the fucking outcome. And that's what Jesus and all of the other incredible characters that you can go back through, any great book of antiquity, of spirituality, of miracles, of prayer, of things, of Moses, I mean, I think Moses probably was tripping on psilocybin when he was talking to the burning bush. I don't know.
AUBREY: Or the burning bush was acacia, which is very DMT rich, so he was actually smoking DMT.
ZACHARY: Okay, or maybe that.
AUBREY: The burning bush--
ZACHARY: But, dude, to me, one of the greatest pieces of Scripture... Like I grew up kind of in a Christian lineage of sorts, and I still hold on to a lot of, particularly, the love and the wisdom that the New Testament gives. But I think there's some really great stuff all through there. But I love the passage where basically Moses is like, "What's your name?" And God says, “no name”. He just states that he exists. He says, "I am." I think it's kind of one of the most profound things in all the Bible, because it's this thing that we as human beings, we keep chasing like the name of God, the name of God, the name of God, and everybody thinks they've got some monopoly on the name of God, and we've got the path to God. But by the way, I know a lot of my Christian friends and family are probably like, "What? You believe what?” But yeah, this will work for you guys. I think it's so sad because it is the beginning of putting God in a box. It's the beginning of saying, again the hubris of humankind to state these two things. In one sentence, we go, there is a God, which is already a profound thing to say, right? A lot of people would say, that's crazy, where's the evidence? I think we can find evidence everywhere, in ourselves, in nature and whatever. But we make this statement, we go, there is a God. Okay, cool. And I know it entirely. And you're like, what the fuck? You're stating that there is an unknowable, immeasurable thing. You are agreeing that there is this entity that is in all through all, like the force in fucking "Star Wars" and somehow, you know all the ifs, ands or buts of what that thing is. You arrogant, arrogant, fucking apes. Like, what are you thinking? So that, it's so unfortunate because I think it starts really genuinely disconnecting us from the profundity of the I am. I am, I am everything. God is the fucking rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky. He's all of us. He's all the bacteria in us. By the way, I say he because of the typical placeholder but he, she, it, whatever, source, I mean, I think there's something so powerful about that. And technology has led us down this road of no, no, you're the God, you are the... And look at this, and now you're empowered with all the information in the world, and now we're finding it lacking.
AUBREY: We are. And I think we will continue to find it lacking. And that's where I just believe that McConaughey let his God show. He let his God show in that scene. And somehow, I think that's the thing. Obviously in person, we're always going to be able to feel that. There's something different about listening to a good jam on Spotify, and then going to a fucking concert. When someone's really ripping and laying it down on a live show, and you feel their energy and you feel the strike of the instruments, or the strum of the strings, it's a different fucking thing. And the crowd itself, being a part of a crowd. The ecstasy of the crowd is fucking, it's real as well. And so, there will be a lot that's replaced, and then there also will be an even deeper craving for that, which cannot be replaced.

ZACHARY: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, right now with vinyl. Vinyl is having this incredible resurgence, because people are kind of like, alright, well, I can have any song I want, and it can be on my phone, and it sounds good. But there's something about an actual record and the needle on the record, and even the crackle of it. And whatever it is, there's a tangibility about it. There's something that is there, and you can feel the soul and the energy of it in a way that an mp3 or a file or whatever, just doesn't translate. And to that extent, I think that more and more people will find these analog kinds of ways to reach back into that. And I hope that that has such a powerful swell to it, that it keeps going, and that we're able to kind of take back a lot of the life that, by the way, if you ask almost anybody right now, and they're being genuinely honest, and you say if you could take away like one piece of technology, or like go back to a certain year of technology, where would you go back to? I would say the vast majority of people, if they really give themselves a moment to think about it, and they're being honest, we're all going back to late 90s, early 2000s. Before all of social media and all of the smartphones and all of this, all of that, because everything that came with that, listen, it's the--
AUBREY: Well, with the exception of podcasts.
ZACHARY: Sure. By the way, the technology for podcasts existed back then. In fact, it was radio.
AUBREY: But radio was controlled. The thing about radio, radio was controlled by stations, which were then...
ZACHARY: 100%. But this fortunately, actually was, this is rudimentary enough from a technological standpoint. The technology existed. The concept of podcasting hadn't been created, right? I don't know. I mean, I think that deep down in us, again, to the point, we crave it. People don't realize that they're even craving it sometimes. People aren't realizing why they're so not satiated in life. But genuinely man, I think it's the return to who we are. And I think a big part of that, honestly, is, once upon a time, like our bodies, we're still hunter gatherers, right? Biophysically or physiologically, we're still that. We were that for thousands and thousands of years, which is why all of the biohacking that goes on now is really just figuring out, well, what did we do then? And then how do we live a better, healthier, happier life? Back then, when we were hunter gatherers, it was before the agricultural explosion, and therefore, the beginning of money. There were shells granted at that time, but prior to that, there were five pillars of survival. It was food, water, shelter, clothing of some kind, and tribe. Those were the only things. Our sympathetic nervous system, our survival, only cared about those five things. Nobody gave a fuck about anything else, which is also why I'm sure depression, anxiety, all these other things didn't really exist on that level then. Because we weren't fucking constantly thinking about what we don't have, or what we need, or yada, yada. And then as soon as we got money, it hijacked our sympathetic nervous system. Because now survival doesn't mean you need these five things, means you just need one. You just need this one thing, and then I can go buy all those other things. And then it's just become, from that point, for the last 12,000 years or whatever, it's, how do I just get that one thing? How do I just get that one thing? And it becomes our whole subconscious modus operandi. And then everything that becomes attached with that. And what we're longing for is getting back to the simplicity, I think. But the biggest piece of that is we've lost community entirely.
AUBREY: Yeah, there has to be an entire reboot of the community tribal structure, and I have a whole Dharma of how that might look in a practice that I've initiated with my friends. I've told the story too many times in the podcast, but I'll share it with you.
ZACHARY: I want to hear about it. Because that's what I want to do, is build community.
AUBREY: I think it's absolutely essential. And so, you went through a really dark moment.
ZACHARY: I've been through quite a few of them, but yeah, in 2017, yeah, when I moved to Austin, I had a whole head full of steam and dreams to go build a community, build an arts community out there. I bought a bunch of land about 30 minutes east of town, on the river, and I was right, I'm going to go and do this. But I had a complete mental breakdown. Clearly I didn't know what was going on with me then. I went to this life saving therapy for three weeks. And in that--
AUBREY: What is that? You referenced that. What is lifesaving therapy?
ZACHARY: It was basically three weeks of working with this company up in Connecticut, where they essentially organized a whole treatment schedule for you. They put you in a house, they give you these companions, these house moms that rotate through every day. They're responsible for making you breakfast, doing your laundry and driving you to all your appointments because you're at death's door, and you can't be depended on to actually take care of yourself. It was three weeks, seven days a week of two to four of these 10 modalities which was psychiatry, psychotherapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, art therapy, meditation therapy, life coaching, nutrition, nutritionist, gym four days a week, yoga twice a week, Pilates twice a week. And in that time, I learned a lot. I learned very deeply that I didn't love myself, and that I had never loved myself, and I had no real concept of what self-love even was. I'm six years into this journey, and I'm still an infant in it. Because I'm almost six years old in my journey of loving myself. But, so proud of myself for where I've come. I mean, the fact that I can even say that I'm proud of myself is pretty good testimony to that journey. So, that was a big part of it. But there was a woman there who was really the linchpin of my healing, because she was one of these house moms. She was a deeply spiritual Christian woman, still is a deeply spiritual Christian woman, who was literally a conduit of God's love, a mother's love for me. Because my major trauma wound is from my relationship with my mom. And this woman was like this conduit of trying to god was literally speaking through her. She was praying for me. She could have lost her job for praying for me. She told me one day, she was like, "Hey, just so you know, if they find out I'm praying for you, they can let me go." To which I said--
AUBREY: What a crazy world.
ZACHARY: Bros. Which, by the way, that's all been kind of understood now, which I'm very happy for. I'm glad that that organization recognizes it because, by the way, I think, it was a really good success example of, you can't just give people clinical teaching. You can't just do that. Because if they don't love themselves, I learned all these great things. But if I don't love myself, I won't apply them to me because I don't think I'm worthy of applying them to me. And this woman was that thing. And even told me, after I said, "Please don't stop praying for me. I need that, you're keeping me alive." She's like, "Oh, no, I won't. I just wanted to let you know." We're driving. And we drive for like a beat, a second longer, and then she turns to me, she says, "Oh, but also, I will gladly lose my job for you." And I lost my shit, obviously, just weeping in the car. But that was God using that woman and all those other people to give me a holistic kind of, at least reboot to get me back on my feet. Now later, after I started learning more and more about my own biochemistry, I just started putting two and two together. Because I, prior to moving to Austin, was on an Adderall prescription, and was a pack a day smoker. And when I moved to Austin, I was like, you know what? Cold turkey, I'm going to give all this up. I want to be focused and I want to go, I had no idea that I was putting myself into a dopamine death spiral. I ended up in this nothing but darkness, because my dopamine levels were so high. And then they were all the way through to the ground. And dopamine is insanely important to motivate you to get the fuck up out of bed and think there's any point to life. So, there was a lot of things that all kind of conspired. There's definitely a perfect storm in that. But that led to all kinds of breakthroughs in my life and being able to write a book, which started the whole conversation of even coming to talk to you. But fortunately, or unfortunately, our schedules didn't work out then, but now we got to hang out in Sedona. That's even better.
AUBREY: Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Do you have a self-love practice? Or, do you just understand the concept? Because it's interesting, like I had Kamal Ravikant, and he wrote a book, "Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It". His method is actually a practice. There's a breath that you take where you say, I love myself, and outbreaths where you say thank you.
ZACHARY: "You're a piece of shit."
AUBREY: Yeah, just to keep the polarity.
ZACHARY: I love myself, you're fucking garbage. You should be so embarrassed.
AUBREY: It was interesting to see that this kind of repetition, and Don Miguel Ruiz says practice makes the master. He talks about that in "The Mastery of Love". And there's some element to it that's practiced, some is kind of understanding the core structure of the cosmos, understanding that God's love, the love of the mother is a real thing. And you can tap into the field of love and collapse the myth of separation, where you're no longer separate from the field of love. And that can help you understand that you're always worthy of love, because you're connected to love, and start to undo some of the code. But it's an interesting complex puzzle of potentially some practice, potentially some understanding the core structure of the cosmos, some vigilance, some personal practices to get your neurochemistry right, your physiology right. It's a very complex puzzle to actually apply, and then have a significant breakthrough, like you had.
ZACHARY: I mean, I definitely think that we all need to take a really good, hard, long look at our biochemistry. And figuring out how to, I think one of the biggest self-love practices is self-care. You have got to understand what it means. And now granted, it's a weird catch 22. Because if you're still struggling with loving yourself, then you'll struggle with caring for yourself. But the more you can fight through that, and be like, okay, it doesn't matter, I'm going to go work out even though I'm not feeling like I love myself. I'm going to go eat healthy, even if I'm not feeling like I'm loving myself. I'm going to get some good sleep, and wake up with the sun, get your circadian rhythm right. All those things, those things start getting your biochemistry more in tune. And shocker, you start actually liking yourself more. I think that's a huge part of what any good self-love practice is. Because I do think that's a big part of that practice. I don't, maybe I should have these intentional breaths, or things like that. But what I would say is one of the biggest, I don't know, one of the biggest practices that I have for myself, is capturing my thoughts. And by the way, the Bible talks about that stuff, too. But, once I learned that, well, quite a few things. I mean, I love this quote from the "Untethered Soul", which is, you are not the voice of your mind, you are the one who hears it, right? We are not this constant chattering, which is why when we meditate, and we can get that voice to shut the fuck up, you realize, oh, yeah, why is all that noise going on in there? And if you're a very cerebral person, and I find myself to live in my mind more than my body and heart often, that's a little more difficult sometimes. But when you recognize that your self-talk is really the negative chiding that you would get from your parents. When I recognized that I would talk to myself the way that my mom and my stepdad would really, like harshly criticize me. And taking that captive and say, “whoa, okay, wait, wait, wait, why? I don't need to do that”. Actually, I'm not a little shit. I'm not a little fuck or whatever my parents would call me. I'm not a fucking idiot. I'm not those things. I am a work in progress. I am doing my best. That's another big thing I think people need to recognize. By the way, this is actually one of the, I think one of the bitterest pills that we as humans absolutely have to swallow. It's bitter at first, but it's really one of the greatest healing medicines. Actually, ironically, I guess so many medicines are kind of bitter. But everyone is doing their fucking best. We don't want to believe that, we don't want to. We're so programmed to judge, we're so programmed to want to distance ourselves from the asshole, from the person who's doing this thing or that, that thing wrong or whatever it is. But the truth is deep down, we are so, by the way, our nature programming as it turns out, more and more data comes out that we are so already programmed when we come out of the womb by our nature, like regardless of what the nurture is, we are super programmed by our nature, not that you can't fix it because we can do that too. But then the nurture is a massive part of that, you're a child, you're getting all this programming. It doesn't mean you're not responsible for your actions. But good Lord, we got to have empathy with everybody including our own parents and go like, they were doing the fucking best clearly. Every villain is the hero in their own story. They don't think they're doing something nefarious, they're surviving in that way. So, that was a huge massive breakthrough for me in being able to forgive my mom, my stepdad, anyone else on my life. Because in order to forgive yourself, what you need to do, you have to go, I was doing my best. Oh, fuck if I was doing my best, I guess everybody else is but I don't want that to be because then I don't have a person to be angry with anymore. I don't have a person to blame for my shit anymore. So, you've got to swallow that fucking pill. And if you can get that down, man, get that shit down. Because if you can radically accept what's happened in your life, you're not going to change it. Then you can radically forgive. Because forgiveness doesn't mean giving people access to your life anymore, that you have to like them or anything, it just means I'm not going to keep drinking this poison, hoping that you're going to die. And then getting to that radical love part of it, which is, I'm going to now want the best for my life knowing that I deserve the best in my life. I'm not undeserving because I'm some idiot that fucked up all the time. I was doing my best, I was doing my best. So, capturing those thoughts, every time I start to condemn myself and saying, "No, that's a lie, that's darkness, I will not receive that." It still creeps in, I still gotta fight it, it'll probably be the rest of my life. That's just part of how healing works. But as a practice, the more I can do that, the more I can get my biochemistry balanced, the more I can keep these mantras, and keep doing things like cold plunging and saunas. And that's all part of that biohacking. It's all part of investing in this vessel. And, at this point in my life, I'm more inclined to believe in reincarnation than anything else. So, I feel more optimistic about losing this vessel at one point, because I think maybe I might have won later. And maybe I've had many before this, right?
AUBREY: You will.
ZACHARY: Yeah.
AUBREY: University of Virginia has pretty much proven it. It's crazy that--
ZACHARY: Really?
AUBREY: Yeah, you got to read the studies. There's just thousands of different case examples that have been documented scientifically that show--
ZACHARY: Well, watching a docu series about death, there was this one episode where it was about these kids who come into the world and they are absolutely, they remember--
AUBREY: Those have been aggregated into the thousands now of impossible situations, where you know exact names, exact places, the way that the house is laid out in a distant place.
ZACHARY: A kid who was a pilot, a World War II fighter pilot, I saw this episode of this kid, that was the life he remembered. He remembered flying a certain plane in certain battles. He was shot down in this place. This was his wife's name. He was six years old. He's rattling off this information. It was all pre-internet too. So it's like, how the fuck, his parents, devout Christians, so fucking confused because they're like, well, how can we believe in what we believe in but also, we know our son's not crazy and he's not a demon, and he's not lying. So what is this? It's like, yeah, and then they talk about, there's all these thousands, so that's what the Virginia study was. It's all those types of things. Yeah, man. It's powerful.
AUBREY: It is, man. It is. And I think one of the last things as we're wrapping up here is, what I've found too is, my own happiness, my own sense of feeling, it's just this kind of peace, like a deep peace is having a deep connection to my purpose and understanding. I think this is also something that we all need to wake up to, this is go time, baby. If it's not game seven yet, it's at least game fucking five.
ZACHARY: Five and a half.
AUBREY: We're in the third quarter of game six.
ZACHARY: We're warming up for game six right now. And it's an away game, guys. We really got to fucking, we really got to step up.
AUBREY: Yeah, I mean, this is the fucking time. When that purpose clarifies, it's kind of scary. Again, it's like a bitter pill, because then you start realizing how am I spending my time? What am I actually doing? How much time do we have? And, making peace with all of these different realities, and then saying, all right, like the Spartans did, I'm going to go out with my shield or on it. And then when you have that mentality, where it's like, okay, I understand that I'm going to play a role in this gigantic symphony, and I'm going to just sing my song and play my instrument as clearly and as saliently as possible. And I'm going to participate in this world, potentially having the best chance possible. And when you actually do that, your life, or at least I can speak for myself, my life has even transformed more than it already had. The deeper my purpose gets, the deeper my joy gets.
ZACHARY: Yeah, and I think a lot of that is because when you're being intentional about wanting to be of service in this life, and in this world, in this universe, I think that God responds to that. And I really do believe that God doesn't give us more than we can handle. But also, we get the opportunity therefore, to handle more if we want it. Like with great power comes great responsibility. And I want that shit. I want that fucking responsibility. I want to be able to go make a difference in this world. I mean, I know a lot of people say it, but I definitely want to leave this world better than when I came into it. But I think the only way to really do that is to go and sing that song, play that instrument, be of service. Even the littlest things that we can do, smiling at a stranger, all of it, that requires us doing our internal healing in a way--
AUBREY: Yeah, and it's a constant battle too, because I say this, and also, it doesn't mean that I don't waver and doesn't mean I have moments where it's like, "God, I fucking hear you." And the God that lives in me as me and through me connected to everything, so it's not this, God is appearing in the Moses movies or some shit like that. It's just like this knowing, this gnosis. It's like, fuck, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. But then there's another voice that comes in and says, "Doesn't matter, son, just give it your fucking best. Give it everything you've got."
ZACHARY: Because God ultimately doesn't need us anyway. Seriously, I mean, I think that we're all infinitely valuable and entirely unimportant. We're in this, and very aware of the good and evil and the light and darkness. And we want to go fight for light, because I think that's what our calling is in our existence full on. But God's already won every battle of war. It's all contained within him anyway. But also, that shouldn't make us be apathetic.
AUBREY: Alright, so at this point, then you'd have to say, the God that you're referring to, there's the God that is everything and is in this full completion of all of the cosmos, that is actually, alright, whatever. And then there's other faces of the Divine that you could, some call angels, or you could call it just a different face of the Divine, that radically fucking cares, and that just cares about your story. And cares about this story of this earth and this fucking planet. So, there's specific dimensions.
ZACHARY: Well, this particular strand of this dimension on this earth in this version of the earth and all that. Because it does matter. In every one of these moments, they're precious, they're real, we're here, right? Otherwise, literally if you were to just take the nihilist approach, then it says nothing about apathy. Like who cares? It doesn't matter what happens, so just let it happen. Then what? Then why? Why are we moving? What's even automating us through this day? Why not just starve to death? Why? Because there is still power in every single moment.
AUBREY: And we know that in our body, we can feel it. We can feel that it fucking matters.
ZACHARY: Fuck yeah.
AUBREY: Fuck yeah. Bro, so fun.
ZACHARY: Solid. Thank you so much, man. This is exactly the kind of shit I wanted to talk to you about. Wellness, spirituality, all of it. Let's go make the world a better place.
AUBREY: Yeah, let's play some volleyball in the meantime.
ZACHARY: Let's go do it. Let's go play some volleyball and basketball.
AUBREY: Much love everybody. Peace.
ZACHARY: Thanks, everybody.