Hello again lovely email friends, hope you’re alright. Sixty years ago, when Mattel introduced its fashion doll toy Barbie, it could hardly have predicted the longevity of her appeal nor the shifting scrutiny under which she would be placed. Even after six decades, Barbie has been able to reflect fashion trends broader than just clothing.

Mindfulness: The recently-released Barbie wellness collection is intended to ‘introduce girls to the benefits of self-care through play’. Let’s not be coy about it, though: Barbie’s a material girl—she’s not the ideal figurehead for mindfulness. But the incarnation of mindfulness currently mainstreaming is big business, with meditation-assisting apps making millions and raising millions more. What’s more, it’s turning up everywhere, even directly mainlined to your frontal lobe.

Extracting mindful practice from Buddhism made it accessible, but the popular understanding is a reductionism: mindfulness is more than a single idea. Just like anything else, it’s not universally helpful and its effects may not all be positive: this is yet to be well-studied. Further, extracting mindfulness from its Buddhist roots has come at a cost, as its mainstream, commercialised form oversimplifies some of the most complex questions of self and the universe.

This all sounds like I’m critical; I’m not. Done piecemeal, hack style, the efficacy of mindfulness is cut right back, but it’s worth starting somewhere. I’d encourage you to go in with your eyes open, make the investment and enjoy what you get in return, whether it be to improve your resilience to stress, help solve practical problems, or turn negative thoughts into positive ones. 🙏

🤩 Botnet is a social network simulator where you’re the only human along with millions of bots who are completely obsessed with you.

🎶 Every Melody Has Been Copyrighted (and they’re all on this hard drive): two lawyers/musicians/geeks generated 68.7 billion melodies. They say this is simple maths: since nobody can copyright a number or series of numbers maybe nobody can copyright a melody.

📲 How illegal rave crews are using custom apps to avoid the police: Custom apps are helping the UK’s free party crews throw huge raves under the noses of the police. New ways to go old-skool.

🏚 DIY playhouse decor reaches new heights: Parents are creating strikingly realistic and shockingly stylish toy houses for toddlers.

🎁 Inside the Massive, Elaborate Care Packages Filipinos Send Home: An extensive shipping network allows millions to stay connected to the friends, relatives, and children they rarely see.

✍️ How To Grip A Pen: Exploring the ‘right’ way, if there is such a thing.

✈️ No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air: at least, not in full. At least, there’s not absolute consensus. This is a really interesting long read on the physics of powered flight and the gaps in our understanding.

Face the world: As the lives we lead change, so it follows we need to change how we lead them. You may wonder how it is people busy as you find time to sit quietly, but that might be the very reason you need to.

Workload aside, an increasing proportion of ourselves exists in the at-worst disturbing, at-best distracting online world, where a mindfulness practice may provide spiritual protection. Bringing mindful principles to social media may make you less vulnerable to its biases and manipulation.

Aside from maintaining the status quo, there’s a role for mindfulness in making changes for the better. While not a cure for everything, mindfulness practice can be applied to managing anxiety and treating depression, as well as gentler outcomes such as stimulating creativity or simply making life more meaningful. Start with a straightforward four-step process and see where it takes you. 🛣

Finally: Over the last couple of years, as I’ve passed through various countries, I’ve kept noticing local language versions of Factfulness by Hans Rosling and made several mental notes to read an English copy. I’m glad I now have: Rosling was a powerful communicator, not only verbally but visually, as proven out by this dissection of his presentation style: the genius of Hans Rosling, frame by frame.