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#151. Hobby lobby
Shem Opolot
December 12, 2025
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HAPPY FRIDAY 🎉 Here’s the tea: it was an interesting week for pondering the death of television and movies as we know them. First, Warner Bros. accepted Netflix’s $87.8bn offer for the baby: Warner’s studio and streaming arms. But then, fellow—and embittered—bidder Paramount Skydance, backed by an investment firm run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth firms; and Larry Ellison, the cofounder of Oracle and father of Paramount's CEO, swooped in, presenting a $108bn offer for the baby and the bathwater: the production studios, HBO streaming, and cable networks, such as CNN. Netflix essentially says the amount Paramount offered was obscene (I didn’t know that was a valid complaint); Paramount says a sale to Netflix is anticompetitive.
But while we wait to see how it all shakes out, here’s what we know: 1) The opening montages of movies and television shows are going to get even more convoluted, and 2) maintain that relationship with the owner of the passwords because, in all likelihood, today’s price will not be tomorrow’s price.
LIFE.
Hobby lobby
“No man is a man if he has lost all of the boy in him.”
Last Friday, my friend called me. She never calls. In fact, she’s known for sending terse, fully punctuated texts we’ve all learned not to read too much into. She didn’t want to give me the opportunity to think—to make up excuses.
“Do you want to go to Durham tomorrow?”
I haven’t been in Durham since I graduated from my master’s about 8 years ago. But I remember it fondly. In Durham, I made lifelong friends, who expanded my mind at a rate only a toddler can best. It’s because of living in Durham that I believe you can learn and unlearn anything. In Durham, I appreciated the power of being constantly surrounded by people smarter than you.
If you haven’t found rooms like that, I highly recommend them. Smart people will make you so comfortable failing. So comfortable saying you don’t know. Smart people will turn your mind into a fenced farmland, the boundaries of which you’re intimately familiar with. And then they’ll force you to raze down the fence and expand the farm.
Anyway. So I went to Durham.
I put up a little fight, fake-mumbling words of protest while strapping myself into the passenger seat with the seatbelt, but the truth was I live for moments like those. The randomness, the adventure, the mystery—ugh. So exhilarating. On the way, I cold-called a few friends whom I hadn’t spoken to in 8 years. They answered; we met for brunch the next morning before I returned to D.C. Moments like those turn me into a kid again.
You see, kids can teach you everything you need to know about being an adult.
Monotonous commutes, doomscrolling, binge-watching your favorite shows—these adult artifacts aren’t objectively bad, of course. But for most of us, they’ve become so interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives that they’ve become drains on our batteries. That’s why you can spend the whole weekend indoors, a little spoon to your cuddly couch, and still feel exhausted when the Monday commute conveyor belt comes around.
You don’t feel energized because those things don’t spark joy.
And you need joy and adventure to light up your life. To freeze time. To look back on a year and not wonder where the time went, but count your experiences instead.
To find joy, you must consult your younger self.
When I was a kid, we loved to wander into neighborhoods we had no business being in, get lost, and then somehow find our way back home. I loved playing football barefoot until the owner of the ball got offended. I loved playing basketball on a dilapidated court whose markings were defined by arguments. I loved randomly visiting a friend who lived far away enough to worry my mum but close enough to walk. I loved playing hide and seek until it was my brother’s time to seek. Suddenly the game stopped then. I loved biking to neighborhoods my parents placed off-limits, exploring, riding with no hands.
These are still the things that bring me joy. These are still my hobbies. And when I look back on my year, yes, I’ll remember all the miraculous consulting gigs that sustained me, but mostly, I’ll think of my son on the rooftop asking me to carry him so he can see mummy’s office in the distance. I’ll think of my daughter insisting I call her “baby girl” instead of her actual name. I’ll think of my two friends randomly visiting me on Thanksgiving. I’ll remember going to Six Flags a day before it closed and riding every ride I could ride. I’ll remember taking random afternoon walks that turned into exploring an art festival. Or a makeshift motel whose rooms were converted into mini art exhibitions. I’ll mostly remember the moments that sparked joy.
What brings you joy?
THINGS.
A quote.
We are predisposed to feel shut off from one another; then, acting on our feelings of being shut off, we produce the very disconnection that we feared.
A picture
Two very good old friends visited me a couple of weeks ago. It was so cold, but the laughs were worth it.
WORK.
The best AI note taker out there
If you have a PC, keep scrolling.
If you have a Mac, lean in. The best AI meeting note taker out there doesn’t intrusively join your meetings. It’s called Granola, and most of its functionality is accessible on the free plan.
FUN.
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Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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