Greetings and welcome to our 19th installment of Biohack the World NYC. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We have a wonderful program for you this evening with some of the biggest names in health and functional medicine in NYC.
In case you’re new to this show, I’m David Choi and I’m the Executive Producer of Biohack the World, a live biohacking event we host monthly in NYC and Miami. And like everyone here sheltering in place, we’re looking for answers. We want to know what it’s going to take to never have a pandemic cripple us and threaten our stability the way COVID is doing to us today.
What’s incredible is that we have this unique opportunity to hit the pause and reset button on our health, to take an introspective look into ourselves, our daily practices and habits, and to rewrite our code to effectively upgrade our operating system.
We’ve been socially conditioned since birth to take part in this vastly unsustainable system that has long been decoupled from any consideration for ecological sustainability. We’ve abandoned our balance with nature opting instead for this infinite-growth, consumer-driven market economy, on a planet with finite resources and extremely delicate and interconnected life systems. And gone unchecked, our current paradigms and ways of thinking not only threaten our immediate health but are eventually going to drive us all off a cliff. Is that not insanity?
No rational person wants to hurt themselves. No rational person wants to hurt others. But at the same time, our wants, desires, and behavior that have been so deeply ingrained in us have extremely deleterious global consequences. From the catastrophic environmental impact, to the exploitation of workers, to the plundering of natural resources from indigenous populations and economies around the world, the list of human grievances and injustices go on and on and on.
We suffer from a value system disorder because for at least a solid century we didn’t have an opportunity like this to stop, breathe, and listen to what nature has been trying to communicate to us all along.
And think for a moment about all those who for years and years were woken up to this bleak reality that all the things we buy, watch, and consume, all our decisions and behaviors that feed our insatiable need for modern conveniences, are actually decidedly inconvenient for our planet and do very little to protect our brothers and sisters around the world and to ensure the health and happiness of all of humanity. Imagine that for so long these crusaders for equality and justice have been keenly aware of all our social inequities but like passengers stuck on a runaway freight train, we’ve had no practical way to change course.
And consider for a moment that ⅓ of our GDP—our primary indicator for the health of our economy—is healthcare revenue and that the more sick and dying people we have in this country, the higher our GDP and thus the greater our prosperity? Is that any real way to measure the success of our nation?
You’ve been watching it on television since you were a child: all the calls for help for the millions of people on this planet malnourished living in abject poverty, and not just Africa, but right here in NYC as well. While our money wheel continues to spin and spin rewarding some of the worst actors in the system. This, when we have the resources, technology, and knowledge to feed, clothe, and educate every single man, woman, and child on this planet, but we purposely choose not to. With all the good and intelligence in this world, we ought to rethink and redesign our antiquated systems that are no longer serving us.
And that’s what we have to do as biohackers. We are futurists because we have to be. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to adopt a moral obligation, a sworn duty, to look after members of our society who are in the throes of all kinds of health challenges, mental, physical, individually, and collectively.
Let’s seize upon this opportunity to rewrite our operating manual from the ground up. For once, we all have reprieve from the unceasing demands of our frenetic pace of life. For once, we don’t have bills to pay tomorrow, people to see now. We’re not stuck in a senseless race, competing for likes, views, and shares and largely nothing really meaningful or conducive for global health.
But there are a select few who do think about this day in and day out. Either because we’ve elected them into office, or perhaps they were trained to be this way, or they’re health crusaders and activists that see our current path for what it is, all its inefficiencies and shortcomings, and desire to present the case for a more sustainable way forward, for once applying the Scientific Method to rebuilding a better society, and not politics or corporate interests.
And that’s what tonight’s talk is about. We’re going to share the stories from the frontline and our city’s leadership, key tips and strategies to live our best life, and ways to help everyone around us do the same.
And so here to introduce our esteemed speakers tonight is none other than Dr. Rudy Gehrman, CEO and Founder of Physio Logic in Brooklyn, NYC’s premiere medical and wellness center that features a full-service Pilates and movement studio, offering a fully-integrated approach to healthcare that emphasizes a comprehensive scope of treatment options to target individual ailments and maximize overall health.