Attention Citizens!
CURRENTLY RESEARCHING THE NEXT VIDEO.
The current goal is for the next video to be about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in the 1830s. It might be about more than that too, I don’t know the EXACT scope of the video yet because I’m still researching it. Literally zero words written at the moment, I’m in Research Hell, absolutely drowning. But that’s the plan. In the past I’ve kinda hinted that this topic was on my mind, so I figured why not just come out and say it.
I’ve still got a stack of books that are tangentially related to the subject sitting on my desk that I need to go through for research purposes. Just the relevant chapters, not the whole books. It’s an intimidating stack. Most of these will probably end up being redundant to what I already have and therefore duds, but I’ve got to check just in case there are some relevant sections that I don’t have in my research yet.
I can feel that I’m still missing something in what I have so far, so I just ordered 4 more books that are exclusively about British slavery and its abolition. These I will probably have to read in their entirety, which may take a while… especially if I’m stopping to take notes all the time.
That’s where I’m at right now. I’m leaving my PROGRESS UPDATE counter at 25%, because the research is still growing-growing-growing with no end in sight. Truthfully, it’s not that easy to tell when you’re 25% or 50% or 75% done researching. To me, it feels like a process that could continue infinitely, trying to go deeper and deeper and deeper into a subject. But then, suddenly, like a flash, it’s like “I think I’ve got everything I need, I can write this up now.”
So right now I’m still going deeper and deeper into the subject, and I have no idea how close I am to the flash that says “I’m done.” Hopefully those 4 books that I ordered will clarify things!
[...several days later...]
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention this. As I was wrapping up the last video and getting it ready to post it, I said a couple times how my brain was absolutely cooked and how I was exhausted I was. A bunch of very kind people reached out, concerned that I was burning myself out. It’s clear that some of you have been traumatized over the years by some of your faves on YouTube burning themselves out and going silent. I notice it too, it’s a disturbing trend.
I just wanted to say that you do NOT need to worry about me burning out! I am extremely careful when it comes to managing my level of stress. There’s a reason that I don’t subject myself to a regular posting schedule. The incentives on YouTube push all creators in that direction, you make significantly more money if you go in that direction, but that’s why all of your faves go insane and burn out.
I ask myself this question all the time, “what do I need to do TODAY so that I can still be making these videos in TEN YEARS?” Sometimes that means stepping away from everything for a week and not telling anybody. Sometimes that means doing the bare minimum for a while, 1-2 hours in the morning, and catching up on all other aspects of my life. Sometimes that means marathon work sessions from sunrise to sundown because I’m feeling really inspired. I’m very deliberate at tracking where I’m at mentally, and making adjustments.
My thought is that longevity is the most valuable thing for the health of the YouTube channel. And it’s the thing that most people miss. Longevity is WAY more valuable than chasing for the YouTube algorithm, or putting out YouTube videos at an optimal pace, or hitting a certain targeted number of views in a year. Not to give away all of my secrets, but I very deliberately named my YouTube channel something very vague, because even back then I knew that if I wanted to have any longevity at all I would need the freedom to make videos about whatever I damn well pleased. My running theory has always been that if I can arrange things so that I can still be doing this in ten years, then my YouTube channel will eventually surpass all of the hyper-optimized, “successful” YouTube channels whose creators burned themselves out. That’s my theory, anyways.
So… don’t worry about me burning myself out, I might be the only creator on YouTube who actually takes that seriously and has a strategy to deal with it, lol.
Books I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic (2026), by Kenneth Rosen
I’ve been hunting for a while for a great geopolitics book that specifically deals with the arctic. Anything written before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 feels like it was written 50 years ago, it’s all irrelevant in my opinion. That narrows the field significantly. I still haven’t found my great geopolitics book about the arctic, but this is the best that I’ve found so far. It’s like 60% travel log and 40% analysis of conditions in the arctic. I don’t really care about the travel log bit, but I definitely learned a lot in the remaining 40%. Lots about the challenges insane complexity of figuring out exactly where one’s territorial waters end. It’s way more complicated than I assumed. In order to have a robust claim, a country has to have a detailed map of every inch of the seabed, which no country currently has. So truthfully, nobody knows EXACTLY where their own territorial waters end. Which could lead to a problem in the future.
Their Finest Hour (1949), by Winston Churchill
Book 2 of Winston Churchill’s 6-volume series on World War 2. This one covers 1940, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, etc. My dumb ass never realized before that the Battle of Britain and the Blitz were different campaigns, I think I had been using those terms interchangeably my entire life. The Battle of Britain was the summer of 1940, when Germany was preparing for an invasion of Britain and Britain was trying to stop that invasion. The Blitz came after that, when Germany gave up on that objective, and began the indiscriminate bombing of cities in order to destroy British morale. Two different things! Felt so stupid when I realized that, maybe some of you out there are in the same boat! Anyways this series is a 10/10 masterpiece. Churchill is obviously an unreliable narrator when it comes to reflecting on his own career, but aren’t we all?
Conversations on Faith (2025), by Martin Scorsese & Antonio Spadaro
I was on a Scorsese movie kick last month, I happened to see this in the library, impulsively picked it up. It’s just interviews with Scorsese about how movies and the religious currents throughout them. Pretty easy breezy fun read, only like 100 pages, could easily read it in one sitting.
Films I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
This section is about films that I recently Enjoyed, and so I won’t mention the name of the 2025 Wizard of Oz themed film that made me lose all hope in Hollywood and put me in an AWFUL mood. Put on The Wizard of Oz (1939) immediately afterwards, needed a palate cleanser to immediately delete that other film from my brain. Palate cleansed!
Man on the Run (2025)
Documentary about Paul McCartney and Wings in the 1970s. Very good!
Music I’ve Recently Enjoyed:
Ram (1971), by Paul McCartney
Became Ram (1971)-pilled after watching the McCartney doc.
Never Come Down, by Brave Shores
Dude, I think I’ve listened to this song literally every day since hearing it for the first time in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025). It’s a sickness, I cannot stop.
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