If your main concern is about loading rails environment every minute to run the script, I would suggest mailgun along with some cron alternatives.
I wrote a blog post about a number of possible options for receiving email in Rails. The cron approach works but but there can be a number of issues if the processing takes longer than your suggested 5 minutes and your then spinning up another instance whilst the old one is still going.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.