Hi,

This week, FIVE topics of interest for you to procrastilearn over.

(And in case you read the last newsletter's holiday reading list and are wondering how many out of the 5 books I managed to get through, the answer is 0.6. Yes, just over half of 1. Obviously, 5 was laughably impossible as a parent. But I dared to dream 🤡)

A YouTuber parent on his lack of sleep

A topic that ceaselessly haunts me is my chaotic sleep patterns due to having two small children. So I was pleased to see popular YouTuber and documentary maker Matt D'Avella recently tackling the topic after becoming a father.

He’s made many "I did an experiment for 30 days"-type videos in the past, but now he’s done something lacking the sweet relief of a time limit: comparing his sleep before and after having a child. The results are completely unsurprising, but the video has a lot of charm and, as is his signature, a pleasing aesthetic.

Make your own hypnagogic AI music video

Marc Rebillet’s YouTube channel became popular during the pandemic. His videos mostly consisted of him jamming out on his music equipment and making highly danceable music laced with humour.

One of his most popular videos is called Your New Morning Alarm, and it is undeniably the perfect alarm song to get you going in the morning.

Now somebody has taken that video of him in his nightgown, and animated every frame using an AI image generator called Warp Fusion. The results are astounding:

A few years ago, you’d need an army of experienced animators to make something as psychedelic as this. But now you can do it all by yourself - here is a guide.

Teaching children to meditate

Apparently, you can teach children how to meditate. And it's beneficial. Millions of children in India do it, and other places are trying to follow suit. Film director David Lynch has spent years trying to get the needlessly-expensive version he likes into schools around the world, but the Robert W Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore is probably the most famous for pioneering it effectively in the US. Here's an old CNN clip about the school:

In the UK, the famous Maharishi School has been going strong for over 30 years - but you’d have to want to live near Wigan, which is a fair bit of commitment. On a wider scale, the UK government launched a 4-year experiment in mindfulness in 2019. I guess it ended this year, but I’m not sure what the final results were - all I can find is the unsurprising news that British teens find it boring.

I can only imagine the chaos during programmes aimed at 3-year-olds. Although obviously, the reason I started googling all this in the first place is that I would love to make my son do it too, maybe in half a year when he turns 3 himself. Being in “the Terrible Twos”, he is easily upset by seemingly meaningless things, and any method of keeping him feeling happy is tempting - but we can’t just feed him chips all day.

Spookily, this very evening a few hours after writing the above paragraphs, my children were given an uncannily relevant present by their cousin: the Meditation Mouse toy from Fisher-Price.

Thanks for listening, Universe. But stop freaking me out.

Getting back aboard the Ship 30

Long-time readers might remember that last year I did a course called Ship 30 for 30. It’s based around posting a small essay or thread on social media every day for 30 days. I've signed up to do it again (it's free after you do it the first time), and would recommend it. I like the accountability and the friendly community that surrounds the course.

This time round, I'm going to try to stick to the topic of procrastilearning for all 30 days 🤯

Yes, that's the name of this newsletter and the vague idea behind it. In short, I want to talk about how it’s actually okay to procrastinate if you’re learning something interesting, and how to reframe any feelings of shame people might have. For example, here are some current essay ideas:

• The positive aspects of procrastination

• How procrastination can be used for personal growth

• Examples of how procrastination can be beneficial

• How to shift your perspective on procrastination

• How to make the most of procrastination time

• How to make procrastilearning a lifestyle

If you have any suggestions, any topics you'd like me to attempt, then just reply to this email and tell me. The main challenge of writing 30 different essays in a row is feeling like you have no ideas, so I'd really appreciate your input 😅

The world's largest postcode area

Rule Britannia?

The UK postcode BIQQ 1ZZ covers the entire British territory claimed in the Antarctic.

Sure, it may be 656,000 square miles, but I don’t think it really counts since there are only a couple hundred scientists posted there, and only during summer.

I think the real winner is in Australia. The entire middle part of the country, 386,000 square miles of it, is covered by the postcode WA 0872. Which seems pretty stupid.

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading. Please wear a scarf.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning.com / More stuff

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