You Can’t Even Relax Correctly

Rodrigo Brancatelli | Found Object | Mar 28, 2026

Some of the saddest advice in modern life is: “You could make money from that.”

Our grandparents had hobbies. Our parents had hobbies. We have lifestyle verticals.

They fished, gardened, sewed, painted, sang in choirs, tinkered in garages, watched birds, played cards, and did not need any of it to become a brand, a metric, or a form of self-improvement. Now even leisure arrives with jargon, equipment, optimization strategies, and the faint shame of not taking it seriously enough.

The modern hobby is no longer content to be enjoyable. It must also be improving, aesthetic, marketable, identity-affirming, and slightly impressive. It should make you healthier, sharper, calmer, more cultured, more employable, more attractive, or at the very least easier to explain to other people. This is how you know leisure has been colonized. The things we once did to escape the logic of performance now speak it fluently.

China Was Once Buying Up Sri Lankan Ports. Now It’s India’s Turn.

Kriti Upadhaya | The Diplomat | Apr 17, 2026

By contrast, the CDPLC acquisition is structured more like a business acquisition. Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard, majority shareholder in CDPLC since 1993, exited in December 2024 amid its own financial pressures and after CDPLC had posted losses of $38.3 million in 2023. Facing the potential default on a shipyard in which the Sri Lankan government itself holds a 49 percent stake, Colombo formally requested that New Delhi encourage Indian investors to consider the asset. MDL was selected based on its shipbuilding record and financial strength. The acquisition was executed through a transparent, phased process under Sri Lanka’s Takeovers and Mergers Code, with the incumbent CEO retained and no sovereign debt involved.