No 1. Welcome to Big Brain

I'm Bailey. I'm a deep dive researcher. I'm tired and maybe you are too?

Let’s get this started!

We know each other from tiktok - when fate mixed with the algorithm and the 3 minute video I decided to post while I made lunch made the rounds.

I remember making the video super clearly. I was in my kitchen making the veggie fill for rice wrapper dumplings during a quick tiktok scroll thinking about people’s massive “hauls” and the blatant over consumerism with some influencers. A thought that had been in my head for the few weeks before came back - why can’t there be some influencers that just tell me what their favorite things are? Things they’ve used for a long time or truly can’t live without. Not just what they “like.” And can they speak a bit about the company, the brand, how it was made, why they chose it? I wanted to know someone else’s life holy grails. I couldn’t find it so I decided right then and there to record one of mine.

(It was a lesson to not take the internet too seriously and post what you think might be a silly little video)

But the post was honestly coming from a place of need that I knew well. It was coming from what I had craved to find while healing from severe burnout - a roadmap on how to adult & some help with making decisions on the small stuff.

About 5 years ago, I was working in human rights advocacy at the United Nations feeling the mental weight of my job and my personal life so intensely that my body burst into hives. I was commuting uptown everyday in NYC and one day I noticed a rash under my bra. The next day it was on my face and legs. No joke I had a full blown allergic reaction to my life.

From that day, I kept spinning and each day felt weirdly surreal. To be dealing with a healing process and then have to go figure out what to make for dinner or what laundry detergent to buy was surreal. I was craving ease in my decisions, so that I could come back to my life. Many of us know this spin. Even if you’re in a good place it could be the spin where you’re just consuming the realities of the world online then you find that an eerie sense of emptiness is creeping up on you as wander the aisles of the grocery store. It feels really existential.

Modern day life makes us continuously make decisions to the point where decisions about the small everyday things like hand soap, white t-shirts, and new water cups make you feel like you’re reaching a tipping point. We all get Sisyphus. We each got our rock(s).

So, I made that video cause I just wanted to find someone on the internet with basic life recommendations to give me a leg up in my daily life decisions so I could get back some big brain energy in my life. I tend to go down rabbit holes with whatever big brain energy I have when I shop - cross referencing on websites, google image reverse search, looking into brand values and manufacturing history. I go overboard (or the rightboard depending on who you ask) and in the process it takes me a long time to decide.

I thought maybe I was the only one looking for that - but after posting my holy grail series a door appeared and on the other side was you!

Let me know if this sounds familiar:

You might also be the person with 100+ tabs open on their phone, color code loving, a constant researcher of whatever they buy, maybe neurodivergent, struggling with decision fatigue in basically every category because capitalism has made everything overwhelming, and someone who just wants peace in their life surrounded only by things that they love (bonus if they were made without the intention of destroying the planet or the people who made it). I get it.

We’re not asking for much right? We just want something beautiful that not going to kill us with plastics, reliable, and made in a way that isn’t horrific.

So welcome to Big Brain! This is my journey through those decisions and the process of being an adult in late stage capitalism — sprinkled in with big brain deep dives on many special interests to celebrate.

I’m not trying to be wirecutter or consumer reports cause I’m a singular human being and these are personal decisions. I’ll be treating this more like a blog/diary/confidant/friend/scream into the existential void. My hope is that this can feel more like we’re pen pals than anything else.

Who am I?

In case you don’t know me: Hi 👋 I’m Bailey. I’m a Cambridge trained anthropologist and adhder. I traded in New York City and London for the Catskill mountains in upstate New York. After my burnout from the UN, it added many tools in my healing and wellness tool belt to cover the body, heart, mind, and environment. I trained as a Macrobiotic health coach, a Feng Shui consultant, a reiki practitioner, and a post-partum doula. A true adhd skill collector.

I’m married to my partner of over 9 years and we have a beautiful rescue doggo named Hansel who is a beagle & border collie mix (and seriously the love of my life). And we work together currently at our company in media & entertainment.

But to really know me — I’m the person with 200+ tabs open on their phone. I keep notion documents to analyze purchases. I journal everyday to stay sane. I always ask for extra matcha cause I like it super green and algae like. Xanadu is one of my favorite movies of all time in addition to My Neighbor Totoro. I usually ask people lots of questions. I don’t like the taste of raw onions and uni. I am obsessed with quality for price and I can find practically anything at a thrift store so I thrift a lot. And I love diving into pop culture and making playlists that match up to the books I read cause we all love a soundtrack.

Lol why the name?

I wanted to name this little corner of the internet Big Brain after my favorite tiktok comment “Big brain but cool!” I had made a tiktok about the anthropological history of gift giving. It was the first video where I showed my Big Brain energy and talked about the stuff that I nerd out about - anthropology in everyday life. I felt like the name incapsulated all that this newsletter/blog can really share.

Big Brain is all of us. As we navigate the hard times in our life, we don’t always have the Big Brain ability to make decisions in the everyday. On the other hand, we each have Big Brains that deserve to be honored where we can hold our personal journeys, our niche fixations, our love of information, and our desire to be out in the world (even when it feels like so much is changing too rapidly not always for the better).

This space will evolve, and I hope we can make it evolve together, so please make sure to leave a comment on posts or shoot me an email. If you reply to the newsletter it goes straight to my inbox.

Recap on what to expect moving forward?

Once a week in your inbox.

1. Holy grail hunt reviews

2. My favorite holy grail decisions

3. Internet and brand deep dives because you also collect facts like a squirrel collects nuts in this forest. I have family in Japan, Singapore and India so lots of my new obsessions originate Asia side.

4. My real life cause who doesn’t want the tea?

5. Current reads & book recommendations from saucy kindle reads to deep thinkers like Viktor Frankl

6. Anthropology action in real life

7. Burnout/Healing/Wellness without being Goop-y

8. .gifs (obviously)

   

If that all sounds good to you, then please leave a comment about any of the following:

1. Anything you feel like has been missing in your corner of the internet?

2. What’s one of your personal holy grails?

3. What does decision fatigue look like to you?

4. What rabbit hole have you gone down recently?

xx Bailey