Welcome to Weekly Wonderings, a newsletter exploring the journey towards Digital **Self-Actualization**: > *realizing our meaningful potential through the synthesis of digital tools, life management systems, and humanistic philosophies* Here's a quick galactic overview of this edition: - [[#A glimpse into my upcoming videos 🔍]] - [[#My New Shining Stars 🌟]] ## In My Life There wasn't too much from this week as I spent it meeting online friends I have been playing games with for over 9+ years 🤯 Although I no longer play competitive first-person shooter games for 16 hours a day, it's still surreal to meet with the people I've spent countless late nights with as we climbed to the top 1% of ranks. Some non-presented things I've been working on: - I have been working on version 1.5 for Linking Your Thinking's Ideaverse Pro product, which should be coming out on Aug 1st 🥳 Unfortunately I think it has lessened my drive to work on my own since I already get my systems building fix when working on it 🥲 - I managed to set everything up for streaming, which I'm excited to use – but I'll be moving in early August and would want to get settled in my new place first and announce it on Youtube 😅 ### A glimpse into my upcoming videos 🔍 Despite not having uploaded for a while, I've been slowly working on two new videos! First, I'm making a video on incorporating Ali Abdaal's productivity system to manage my life using Obsidian and Akiflow! This was inspired by the recent workshop he hosted for the start of Q3, which you can see my notes of at [[Ali Abdaal Q3 Alignment Workshop]]. For this video, I'm experimenting with the way I write my scripts based on [[YouTube Scriptwriting]] and [[Storytelling]] for more creative and engaging ways of sharing ideas. Speaking of which… For my second video, I'm back to internalizing the essence of my initial videos! I'll be documenting my journey learning 3D modeling and animation in Blender until I can create cool B-roll for my videos and environments for my 3D model. As much as I enjoy the space-themed writings I've created for my brand so far, I feel it's missing the awe of seeing the visual vastness of the universe. So, inspired by space-themed media like [[Cosmos]] series as well as creators like [Kurzgesagt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPrjP4A_X4s) and [Epic Spaceman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsRmyY3Db1Y), I'll be working towards more creative visuals and story-driven videos to better bring these ideas to life 🤩 But due to the goals I set out for myself and other ongoing responsibilities, this might be a 1 month+ experiment 😅 Additionally, I've been experimenting with video essays by synthesizing the ideas of anime I've watched and books I've read (Obsidian has been very handy for this!), but I'm still unsure how to complement them in a video medium. %% On the one hand, I feel a sense of guilt for not creating more consistently on my channel, but at the same time, I don't want to pollute the internet with generic videos that focus on shallowly retaining the viewer's attention rather than nourishing them with novel perspectives and ideas, which I've found to be frustratingly common in the more business/productivity parts of the internet. %% I have no deadlines on when these will be completed, but if you let me know what you'd be interested in seeing first, I'll put more focus on that 🫡 ## My New Shining Stars 🌟 _A place to share the new stars and constellations inside my digital galaxy_ ### Inputs - Book - [[The Burnout Society]] - ![[The Burnout Society#^ghbskg]] - This was a book that gave me anti-hustle food for thought similar to [[Four Thousand Weeks]]. It was an effortful read due to the specific references and terminologies, but rewarding as it helped illuminate the dangers of personal growth at all costs advocated by [[Hustle Culture]]. It made me remember how [[Self-Actualization]] can fall under the same trap of meaningless improvement if we fail to engage in contemplation or appreciation of the journey. - You can read the notes I created in [[The Burnout Society Application]] as well as my highlights at [[The Burnout Society]] - Anime - [[Girls Band Cry]] - A hidden anime gem from last season that I unexpectedly enjoyed due to its relatedness to my current interests in 3D animation and existential questions on pursuing your passions - It's inspired me to slowly accumulate thoughts for an essay on pursuing your passion and the pathless path, as seen in [[Girls Band Cry Video Essay]] ### Notes - While working on my video for Ali Abdaal I've shallowly learned about the concept of [[Solar sails]] in exploring the cosmos, which I think can fit in nicely with my space analogies and focus on humanistic psychology 😋 - [[GPT 4o mini]]'s drastically decreased costs have lessened the operational costs of generative AI from your PKM system. I'm curious to see what new plugins or use cases can be possible from this 👀 Maybe a more personalized tutor for learning is possible with 4o's multimodality as seen in [[Why We Stopped Making Einsteins]] ? ## A quick parting question I want to improve the reading experience of this newsletter, and am curious to hear your thoughts: *Do you want a bigger sneak peek of each edition in the email I send out, or do you find the quick outline to be enough context?* ## My Free Resources If you want to level up your productivity or personal knowledge management, you can check out the following free resources: 🧠 [Organize your life and knowledge by building your second brain](https://free.johnmavrick.com/code-method) 📃 [Get my FREE 4-part Obsidian beginner course with 20+ templates](https://free.johnmavrick.com/obsidian-templates) 🕸️ [Set up a powerful zettelkasten in Obsidian for learning](https://free.johnmavrick.com/zettelkasten) 👩‍🏫 [3 Days to Lecture Note Taking Mastery](https://course.aidanhelfant.com/3daystolecturenotetakingmastery?ref=JohnMavrickYT) 🤖 [Get my FREE Ultimate Guide to using AI for PKM with 15+ prompts](https://free.johnmavrick.com/ai-pkm)