How to Be Cross Eyed

You’ve been sold sweet lies by the mainstream personal growth pop culture.

That you should “just be yourself.” That you should “go with the flow” of life more. That you can “manifest” the life you want via positive thinking. That you should “be kind to yourself” no matter what. That obsessive self-improvement feeds an inherent psychological defect somewhere in the murky depths of your being. That you should do less to get what you want.
These lies are comforting, and perhaps they work for some people. But not for me, and they probably won’t help you.
Those peddling them, for profit, or just because they are popular, underestimate just how detrimental a physical imperfection can be (we’ll explore this more in chapter 2). Doesn’t it seem that these bland platitudes often come from people - authors, influencers, gurus - who are conventionally attractive (or were for decades of their lives)? They are almost certainly also underestimating the significant advantage of being good-looking while misattributing their success to personal growth principles that appeal to the natural human bent toward laziness.
If you, like me, were cursed with a conspicuous physical imperfection, you must lifehack relentlessly. You need the underground, unconventional, barely legal, ride-the-ethical-edge shortcuts to what you want. If you’re not occasionally called a “control freak,” you’re underestimating the amount of agency you need to bring to bear in life. And when you’re called that, just do what I do: smirk.
You need to bring sharper tools to the project of architecting a beautiful life.

Doctors begin their careers with the Hippocratic Oath vowing to...

First, do no harm.

While I'm not a doctor, the same ethos has underlied my endeavors to inform about Smart Drugs, Nootropics, health supplements, and Biohacking tech for 14 years now. I'm a major advocate of the safe and conservative use of these tools, so in this article, I'll outline my guidelines for safety and risk management strategy. If you're new(-ish) to this whole weird and wacky world of Biohacking, self-experimentation, and cognitive enhancement, this is a pretty good place to start.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

Water and I have a sordid history.

Breathless, 90 feet down

The first time I almost died underwater was during my scuba certification dive. Scuba is a badass (and expensive!) hobby but it’s quite dangerous! Every seasoned scuba diver has a story or two (or more) about almost dying. There are just so many things that can go wrong when you’re deep underwater pretending to be a fish.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

A hacker is someone who wants to gain complete control of the system they are dealing with — be it technological or social.

A Biohacker, therefore, is someone who wants to gain complete control of their own biology.

One way or another biohacking is a game-changer for those of us with physical imperfections. Unfortunately, there’s not that much that I can do to biohack my crossed eye, in another decade ocular biotech will probably advance to the point that my ocular nerve can be repaired. So I biohack to…

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

The Central American country that you most associate with surfing, beautiful natural parks, exotic wildlife, lackadaisical Latin lifestyle, coconuts, paradisiacal islands, and beach parties with girls in bikinis is probably Costa Rica. But, trust me, you don’t want to go to Costa Rica…

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

Those of us who want to be as happy, healthy, and productive as possible should strive to habituate flowstate. Flow is a peak state of consciousness that is increasingly rare in modern life for two reasons…

• Lack of focus — In the past, people could literally focus on just one thing for many hours or even days with the exception of taking breaks for sustenance and sleep. They weren’t distracted constantly by cell phones, computers, television, and 4,000 advertisements a day. Focused attention is crucial to flow. No focus. No flow.
• Disinterest in religion — Historically, the way that even the most common of people reached flow, was through the practice of religion. Religious worship in its myriad forms is conducive to flowstate. Modern folks are increasingly secular or marginally religious.

I’d urge you to rediscover flow, it’s a powerful tool at our disposal but there are subtleties to yielding it.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

Apparently, it’s more common that you’re born with strabismus, I’m a bit of a rare bird in that I was born more or less normal and became cross eyed over time. So I was keenly aware of how people began to treat me a little differently over time.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

I’m not going to suggest something silly like that your physical imperfection actually gives you an advantage. It doesn’t. Well-meaning friends, family, or self-help gurus may try to convince you that it’s somehow a blessing to have this physical imperfection, but it’s really not.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

I once bought coconuts from a man on an uncharted island who had a swastika on his wall. I really don’t think he was a national socialist or fascist though.

From How to Be Cross Eyed: Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection — a mémoire and lifehacking manifesto

When it comes to optimizing health, happiness, and overall human performance (there’s a very in-vogue phrase that will make you sound cool at cocktail parties) there are a lot of low-hanging fruit options which these chapters will explore. They might not be cutting-edge technology with cool names and acronyms BUT they still make a big difference in the mental horsepower that you can bring to bear.

If you’re wary of using Nootropics you’re going to want to implement all of these. I’ll discuss the pros vs cons, evidence, usage, and cost of these empowering lifestyle biohacks.