Hello everyone. First of all, I want to say that I am really, really happy. After months, weeks, and days of searching, I managed to find people who shared something in common with me: they hate forgetting things but know how to solve this problem.
What I mean is that I am truly happy to find people who can help me, who have much more experience than I do, and who understand what I want to learn. I hope they can assist me in my growth in this field.
I’ll give a brief introduction, even though I know no one is really interested. I am a 16-year-old boy who, ever since arriving in Italy and starting school, has been in great difficulty because I lack basic knowledge. I skipped primary and middle school and went straight to high school. I experience a terrible, terrifying difficulty that prevents me from achieving my goals because there’s no one in this awful society who can help me catch up on what I missed and improve, learn the basics, and build everything up.
That boy is me. Since I’ve been in Italy, since high school, I’ve tried to find a method to learn how to learn. I’ve doubted myself many times, and even now, I question my sanity. I think I have some mental problem because I can’t explain what happens to me.
To put it simply, I am here to ask for help from anyone willing to genuinely assist me in improving and mastering memory techniques. I want to perfectly master memory techniques and become a true memory athlete. I want to be able to store large amounts of information, but not just store it—also use it to create new things, to develop my brain’s maximum capacity, and to get the most out of my memory.
This is my goal: to get the most out of my memory, solve all my mnemonic problems, and memorise anything. I believe this is the goal we have in common. The reason I am reaching out to you is because I am sure that all of you have achieved most of your goals thanks to memory techniques. And not just that, there must have been sacrifice and much more.
However, the way I see memory techniques is completely different from anyone else. I see it as the tool that helps you achieve your goals, a way to get the most out of yourself. I believe we share this in common.
My request is for clear, well-defined instructions, not the kind you find on the internet, YouTube, or social media. On YouTube, I found Anthony Metivier, an extraordinary, excellent, wonderful person who does great work and has done great things for everyone, especially for people like me. Unfortunately, I haven’t had access to all his videos and resources because I don’t speak English. This is another problem I’ve faced since I came here. Learning Italian was already difficult; now I have to tackle English too. Google Translate helps me a bit, but I still need to improve my Italian.
Honestly, Italian matters little to me. I’m much more interested in learning English, which is the native language, the language spoken, the most used language in the world, so I can access all information regarding memory techniques. So, I want to learn memory techniques and English.
However, there’s a small problem: to learn memory techniques, which I will then use to learn English, I need English to learn memory techniques. Do you understand the problem?
I even tried following the normal school system to learn English at school, but it’s impossible. I say this from experience: if you’re someone who is behind, teachers abandon you. That’s what has always happened to me, just because I’m different, just because I don’t have the same intelligence or whatever as others. I’m judged, I know nothing, I’m discriminated against. There are so many problems that I can’t face alone.
I think the only goal, the only thing that can save me from all these problems, is to learn memory techniques to improve my studies. I study Environmental Biotechnology; I’m in my third year of high school. The only way I’ve found to retain all information, to prevent the oblivion of memory from taking away everything I’ve worked for, is to learn memory techniques.
But the problem is that in the past, I’ve already tried memory techniques, but I’ve never managed to solve anything. First of all, because of time, but not only that. The main problem is that I didn’t really know what to do. On YouTube, you find videos that give you instructions and everything. Anthony Metivier clarified some doubts for me and helped me understand them. However, the fact remains that I can’t speak to him directly; we don’t have a chat or anything. I can only take what is given to me; I can’t ask for help, I can’t talk to him.
But this time it’s different, I feel it, because I can talk directly with you, with all those who truly care about memory techniques, all those who love what they do, all those who have felt difficulties and had to learn memory techniques not just to help themselves but also to achieve their goals.
So, I ask all of you for your support, help, and everything necessary to achieve my goal: absolute mastery of memory techniques to memorise anything long-term. Scientific subjects are complex to memorise. I would really like to start from the basics of memory techniques because I am not at all sure that I truly know this extraordinary world. With Anthony Metivier, I heard a lot about circles, memory circles. I heard about Giordano Bruno, Aristotle, and many other things, and their inventions, their updates, their techniques ofThe problem is that it tells you the story and everything. A problem I’ve noticed in Anthony Metivier’s videos is that he introduces the technique but doesn’t give you well-defined instructions to master it, to learn it properly, and to have well-defined, well-made foundations. I have this block because I’m afraid that if I don’t execute something well, and if I let myself be carried away by creativity and all these things, I’m afraid of making mistakes, I’m afraid of ruining the basic technique. I’m afraid that if I don’t learn them as I’m told, I’ll ruin it. This is one of my problems; it’s an unconscious thing that stays with me, and I can’t understand why. I’m afraid that by not executing what I’m given, I won’t be able to achieve the same goal. Maybe I’m overcomplicating things because I’m afraid that by modifying the technique or trying to do it my way, I risk ruining it, making the situation worse, or even making the technique more difficult than it actually is.
These are small issues, but the real problem is that, first of all, I didn’t know how to see the memory palace. I didn’t know how to visualise it. What does it mean when it says “you have to visualise”? What do you mean by visualise, see it? I’ve done the tests where I walk through the various loci of the memory palace, but I don’t know how to memorise, or even how to build the memory palace, how to memorise it. I stand in front of, for example, the wardrobe and try to memorise the wardrobe, but I can’t. Maybe I visualise it, I try to visualise it, I try to analyse the individual details, I try to reconstruct it in my mind, but it doesn’t work. Maybe I’m focusing too much on the details. I don’t know how to see the thing, maybe I’m making it too complicated. I’m a person who reflects on every single detail of what is told to me, and therefore tends to ruin everything.
But apart from that, I don’t know how to build the memory palace, how to see the locus, the loci, how to insert the loci. The biggest difficulty I’ve always had is transforming scientific concepts, terminologies, and memorising texts. If I were able to memorise books, texts, and various things, I’ve searched for thousands of things, thousands of information on how to memorise books and things, definitions, various things. I’ve never found anything. Nothing, nothing, nothing. In reality, what I’ve found tells you that it’s not possible to memorise the whole book, you have to choose the information. Yes, I know that. Alright, I got that far. But it doesn’t tell you how to do it. It doesn’t tell you to use the link method for this, use the memory palace for this, do this first and then this. It doesn’t give you precise instructions and it doesn’t give you well-defined examples.
Another problem I’ve always had since I started memory techniques, and I think everyone has had it, is when you have to create images for complex terms. I’ve never, ever, ever understood that. I can’t understand how to use phonetics to memorise terms. I would really like one of you to focus on that part and explain it to me very, very well. Any advice is fine, but please just explain it to me step by step, perfectly, with examples from easy to very easy, to understand how to use this phonetic system to memorise complex terms. This is the most complicated part of all: creating images for complex and abstract things.
I’ve read books, for example, I’ve read the book “The Art of Remembering Everything” – I don’t remember the author, but it always talked about this journalist. I’ve seen someone advise a medical student to read this book. I will read all the books you recommend, but the problem is remembering what you read. I can read thousands of books, but if I don’t remember anything, it’s a problem. I also need to find an effective mnemonic reading method that allows me to select and memorise the necessary information, understand how to apply memory techniques, but also small memory techniques in reading to remember certain things, but a specific reading for memorising. I’m not really interested in speed reading, but if it’s necessary, I want that too.
I’ve done a lot of research and discovered that at my age, 16, neuroplasticity is still at its peak development. I would like to create the perfect memory already now. I want to start already now, very early, at my age, and I want to continue until my death, studying and mastering mnemonics to have a perfect memory, a memory that is able to memorise everything it intends or wants to. It decides to memorise and memorise it and keep it forever, not like they do in memory competitions where you memorise 10,000 digits, 20,000, 30,000 words, digits, names, faces, and then once the competition is over, everything disappears. No, I want permanent memorisation that remains forever.
I want to understand the review system. I’ve heard about spaced repetition, but I don’t know how to apply it, I don’t know how to use these things. Because if I studied maths today, I memorised some formulas, geometry, analytical geometry, all that part, complements of maths, I studied it and I have to review it. I memorised it, I studied it with the perfect method of memory techniques and with comprehension, the use of active learning and all these methods. Then to maintain it, I have to use spaced repetition. But if the next day I have to study again, I have to discover a new topic, study a new topic, that overlaps. More things overlap, and then I don’t know how to organise myself.
Speaking of organisation, I don’t know how to organise information. There’s some small information because what I’ve memorised so far are lists of objects. I haven’t memorised abstract words. I’ve even tried, but it doesn’t work, the method I try doesn’t work at all. I try to create associations or use phonetics, but it doesn’t work. Maybe I really have some brain problem, I don’t know. The more I go on, the more the people around me make me notice it. The more I go on, I compare myself with people, I see extraordinary people at school who manage to achieve their goals. I’m the only one left behind. The teachers don’t care, they don’t care about anything, they don’t try to help you, nothing. That’s why I’ve heard that the only way to move forward and achieve your goals is to do everything yourself But doing it all by myself, at first I tried: it was another one of the phases of my learning of memory techniques, but it wasn’t effective and it didn’t work. For this reason, I find myself here now asking for help from you, from all of you, and I truly hope to receive it. I would really like for you to be part of the change I want to bring into my life, because I have already experienced several times that alone it doesn’t work.
I want to undertake this path in which I feel I have to ask other people for help; I almost feel the necessity of it. This is why I am turning to you: give me advice, things to read, exercises to do, every single useful thing to start over from scratch and reach the peak of excellence.
All of you, in my opinion, have gone through a difficult phase in your life. I know it is so, the life of a human being is made precisely of ups and downs. If you succeeded, perhaps it is because you had the strength, the discipline, the intelligence, or simply the way to make it on your own. I have tried several times, but I am starting to fear that I have problems with my head, my brain, or my memory. I don’t want to believe it and I cannot instill it in myself, otherwise I would risk truly convincing myself of it.
I really hope you can help me: both those who have had experiences similar to mine, and those who have had worse experiences or different projects. I truly ask you for help and support; I am desperate and I don’t know how to move forward alone. It is as if I were living in error: I read, I watch videos, I study and I try different methods, but I always stay stuck. I really don’t know how to do it, I can’t manage to memorize or study well the things I would like to.
My parents don’t help me at all and even refuse me the possibility of doing courses or similar activities. Nothing, I would have to do everything alone, but this time I want to ask for help from you, hoping for a change and hoping that someone actually reads this message and helps me.
Thank you everyone.
