The Myth of Inner Beauty—and Why I Now Wear an Eyepatch

Yes, I’m wearing an eye patch now. And it’s finally time I told THE TRUTH about why my eye is… like that.

It begins with my mother.After college, she took a solo Euro trip -- the kind of spiritually expansive journey you go on before seed oils ruin everything. She ends up in Crete. She is big into hiking, sunlight exposure, and keeping her circadian rhythm synced with Mediterranean daylight cycles. Just really living her best proto-biohacker life!She goes hiking along the coast. There were caves. Of course, there were caves. And in one, there was this big opening in the roof where the sunlight streamed in like something out of a perfume commercial. She stood there, basking in the moment, contemplating her future -- so full of mystery and adventure...

That’s when she hears a voice behind her -- a deep, melodic murmur in Greek.She turns around and sees a Cyclops.Yes. A literal, living, one-eyed man-mountain glistening with olive oil and ancestral masculinity. He’s wearing some kind of animal hide that definitely hasn’t been sanitized.She freezes. He smiles.“Don’t be afraid,” he says, “Welcome to my cave.” (He said it in perfect English, by the way. With a charming island accent.)Now, my mother is a bold woman. She didn’t backpack across Europe to NOT vibe with supernatural beings.

They got to talking. He noticed she only had a couple of protein bars for lunch, and being a gracious host, he offered her some traditional Cretan cheese and locally fermented biodynamic wine -- which he explained was made by his cousin, a winemaker who only listens to goats to decide when to harvest.They talked. They laughed. The Cyclops listened -- really listened. At one point, he said, “You’ve been hiking all day. Would you like a foot rub?”

And you can see where this is going...Yes. My mom banged the Cyclops.There, in his cave beneath the ancient sky. Because YOLO. Because wanderlust. Because when a muscular mythological being offers you cheese, wine, and affection -- you say YES.She lost track of time. The conversation, the connection - it was so deep, so magnetic, so primal - she found herself lost there in an "unbearable lightness of being" moment.And, I won't reveal too many lurid details; but we all know that there's really no such thing as "safe sex," and it was the 80s, and my mother lived DANGEROUSLY (and THAT, friends, is how to use a semicolon with salacious style! Style that throws caution to the wind as my mother did there in that cave below foreign stars.)Midnight came.

And just as their climactic union reached its apex, a bolt of lightning - out of nowhere, pure freak act of nature or divine intervention - struck the Cyclops on the back mid-thrust.He died instantly.My mother survived. Traumatized, barefoot, and slightly tipsy, she staggered out of the cave, made it back to her hostel, and chalked the whole thing up to a heatstroke hallucination. Until a few weeks later...

Her period was late.And that is how I was conceived.A child of lightning. Half-Cyclops. Born of wine, goat cheese, and pure magnetic polarity. Conceived in a cave during a wine-fueled union between woman and legend. It explains so much: The intensity that I bring to everything I do, my habitual rule-breaking, my perspective, my vision -- or, rather, the lack of it in one eye.

Which brings us to this look.And over the years, just a few commenters on my videos have pointed out - ALWAYS VERY POLITELY - that my naked face is not the MOST PLEASANT viewing experience. And for the longest time, I just said, "Be yourself unapologetically!" And for the longest time, I embraced radical authenticity. Full frontal weirdness. And no fucks were given.But I am a man who embraces reinvention the way the Cyclops embraced my mother. So It's time for a new look, and this is it.

The real story is not nearly as epic

I was born this way. I'm cross-eyed; I have conspicuous strabismus, which is currently beyond the bounds of Biohacking or surgical solutions because of some nerve damage I have. It got worse in my mid-20s because my career mostly involved staring at computer screens for +8 hours a day, which is bad for your eyes. If you don't want to end up looking like me, then don't spend so much damn time staring at screens.

But, on my 40th birthday (yeah, I look pretty good for my age, don't I?), I decided to correct one of my most grievous errors and cover it up.

I should have done this earlier; there are a few good personal development lessons in why I didn't. I'll explain...

Casting your identity in stone kills growth

Let me be honest: I made "cross-eyed" my identity.

I wrote a freakin' 221-page book entitled How to Be Cross Eyed about Thriving Despite Your Physical Imperfection, and I did thrive. Despite my glaring physical defect...

I've had a pretty interesting life. I've dated a politician's daughter in Medellin, Colombia. I hung out with spies in Kyiv, Ukraine. I've almost died underwater twice. I participated in a bank robbery and I lost my virginity to a spy (yes, really!) From having sex in a brand new Maserati and getting in high-speed car chases to being deported from South American countries and representing the US Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump I've found the happiness that I didn't give a damn about and realized my dream of becoming an adventuring philosopher.

And along the way, I found edifying joy and meaning between the voluptuous legs of a beautiful Bulgarian woman on the edge of Europe - which turned into a happy 7-year marriage.

But more recently, I had the most mind-blowing day of my life as a Biohacker, and it reminded me that personal growth and embracing adventure demands a flexible identity. It's OK to hold to a couple of core values and principles, but certainty is often the enemy of edifying evolution. Identity and certainty often go hand in hand. Mark Manson explains this better than I in his book; he recommends not being too married to an identity as it closes you off to transformation and growth. Manson’s law of avoidance is…

The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it. (p. 136)

I say don’t find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that’s what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of the differences in others. (p. 139)

In my recent essay about sex addiction, I made the point that it's an especially bad idea to have your identity married to something negative. Then I looked at the man in the mirror - I had allowed my public identity to become entangled with my ugliest feature.

What got me here won't get me there

Let me tell you about Bill. He's a very cool guy. He was a Canadian ex-pat I met in South America. Bill was an amazing salsa/bachata dancer; I saw him in action plenty of times, and he's a dangerous man on the dancefloor.

* He also speaks Spanish fluently, almost like it's his first language.

* He is also in great shape and obviously takes care of his body.

* He's a somewhat successful businessman; he has very high standards for his product and its marketing, and this extends to his numerous customers.

* I would seldom NOT see him surrounded by friends, and he always had a pretty girlfriend (and a few waiting in the wings to take her place).

* You might think that a guy this successful would be kind of a douchebag, but he's actually down-to-earth and friendly.

So here's the interesting thing about Bill - the successful salsa dancer, he's very short. This bri