brain un-rot

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if you’re here, it’s probably because a ~60 second video on your feed cut off before i’d finished developing the idea. i keep my videos short there as social media algorithms favour brevity, but as you can imagine, the nuances of human relationships, manipulation, and behavioural dynamics rarely fit into a one-minute box, even for the most simple-minded.

this newsletter is where you'll get deeper insights, actionable advice, and above all, a chance to un-rot your brain. 


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for those of you who want some context so you know who’s behind these: i’m anthony. i make videos about relationships, life, and wellbeing, but it didn’t start out like this. my content journey mirrors my relationship journey - a catastrophic start, but now we’re finally moving upwards instead of horizontally.

and after three equally chaotic years, i also recently graduated with a first class honours from the university of nottingham in media, communication and modern languages. quite a mouthful, and quite an achievement too, if i do say so myself.

but as the celebrations died down and normal life was restored, an incredibly inconvenient question was born inside my head: what good is academic theory if it’s never put into practice?

a scientist can know everything in theory, but practical testing can introduce variables he didn’t even think to account for. a lawyer can have every law and legislation memorised, but what good is that if he is unable to connect the relevant clauses into a winning argument?

this gap between knowledge and application was what i struggled with most for the majority of my teenage years.

on paper, i was highly socially capable. in reality, i was severely shy, timid, and often became paralysed in the process of translating written logic into spoken execution. words would form in my head, but never move close to my lips. in particularly important situations (think presentations, formal events, and interactions i deemed high-stakes) they would express their unwavering support by not even bothering to form in my head in the first place. 

deep down, i knew i wanted, needed, to fix this. but navigating the real world is easier said than done when you’ve been living almost exclusively in your own mind for longer than you can remember. the eventual breakthrough wasn’t reading more books, or googling additional ways to keep a conversation going; it was realising that navigating the real world would never be easy, and yet that still wasn’t a convincing enough reason to not navigate it. 

so over the next few years, i shifted my focus from internal thoughts to my immediate surroundings. i did everything from learning the basics of small talk to mentally mapping micro-expressions and accurately predicting behavioural clusters. trust me, i know how obsessive that sounds, but i was on a mission to test every theory, and the results to date have been stellar. not every theory has proven true of course, but i’m at a stage where all variables have been accounted for…for now, anyway. 

this isn’t to say the mission has been completed - human behaviour is ever-changing and ever-nuanced. no one can ever fully understand every personality profile; anyone claiming otherwise is either lying, or God. so i won't pretend i know everything, but i will say i know a lot more than the ‘severely shy’ version of me did.

creating this newsletter is my way of sharing what i’ve learnt, what i’m still figuring out, and what i think the future looks like for us beautifully complex humans.

i’ll only ever publish a piece after it's reached the standard where i'd genuinely spend my own time reading it.

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there are no ads, no spam, no filler. just raw, written breakdowns paired with an exclusive, 3+ minute voice message sent directly from my phone to your inbox. 

if you want to read along, leave your email at the bottom of the page and i’ll send over a highly rated past newsletter so you can start reading and listening straight away x

 

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