Reflection: nonprofit vs for-profit

Note 2023-08-18: This is a clumsy freewrite and kind of just a mishmash. 

I'm not sure why, but I've gone in circles on this one for the last 2 months: Should I start a nonprofit or a for-profit? I needed to write some reflection down here so I can stop being confused.

Non-profit benefits:

Possibly a higher probability path to a breakout career

Impact is much closer to the ground (hence not deluded)

Higher probability of organizing a great Manhattan Project

Makes full use of my talent?

A job like this ensures that I am networking and making friends with the kinds of people I think I'd really enjoy being around

For-profit benefits:

Sustainable living, including the ability to have a family

Compounding effect of business acumen

Use what I learned in college

Reward for hard work? Or, ability to be taken care of re: family, health, and welfare/time off

Creating a self sustaining organization

Creating abundance

Okay, so what are the things I "need"? Strong relationships, a meaningful contribution to humanity, and money to sustain. 

The other thing as well is the opportunity to organize a "great Manhattan Project" that accomplishes something extremely useful for the world and which otherwise would not exist. I think this is something along the lines of, The best societal use of my talent is in leadership until proven otherwise, hence I still need to prove it otherwise.

What are the great Manhattan Projects which otherwise wouldn't occur? Seems like, climate regulatory bottlenecks in the U.S., modernization of California, or pandemic defenses against another really bad pathogen.

Naturally, seems like you can't have everything. And trying to optimize can make your head spin. I've been trying to optimize for years. Doesn't seem to be productive. 

Last 6 months, I've also been reading How to Decide by Annie Duke on and off. I think I should apply some of the techniques to this decision-making. 

What's the conclusion? Still, I don't know.

Plan A: Nonprofit

Plan B: Series of tiny business projects that compound on each other, a bit like an underdog rebel. And go back to grad school.

Plan Z: Back to the office job, but at least it pays well and can allow me to move to New York

Okay, so I have a need for a vibrant social life, and it seems like this is going to come from binding together people under a common cause. Otherwise the adhesion of people seems to flitter away. Interest groups are what bind people together, and it seems like if this is my biggest interest group I should cultivate it instead of let it sit to the side. One thing that confuses me about adulthood is that people don't choose their coworkers, and so you end up spending so much of your life with people that may or may not nourish your existence(?).

The nice thing about working on climate change is that people were quite willing to take your meeting, and so it's easy to form a friend connection that way.

Okay, so by writing this, it seems like the best path forward is still the nonprofit route. 

Oh yeah, I mean the key paradox I was going to before was that, when I was trying to do the for-profit route, the biggest impediment was in fact the lack of connections. Hence really the bottleneck to be solved is having more connections. So if the nonprofit route is the direction with the highest probability of a breakout career that doesn't yield money but does yield more connections, then ultimately that's the best place to be aiming.

I think that reminds me of a family friend I met in Singapore who was a successful serial entrepreneur, and he told a pretty interesting story about how it's important to serve the community first before striking your success as an entrepreneur. In his case, he spend a lot of time serving the government and business community of Singapore, and so later when he wanted to start some businesses, it was so clear that he had done so much for Singapore that Singapore was going to bend over backwards a little bit for him. That's the first time I'd heard something like that. So, it's to say that it's not like non-profit and for-profit work exist in completely different domains. Ultimately, the most important thing is to be really good at what you do.

I think the A, B, Z planning helped a bit. Ultimately, there's still a lot of research and validating of Plan A before I dive headfirst into it. And if it's looking to be quite unpromising, then back into the trenches of small, creative businesses I should go.

My Mexico City recommendations (the ones I can remember)

You must eat Al pastor tacos

You really can't go wrong with almost any of the tacos in CDMX, so you don't have to rely on Google Maps to find the best rated taco shop 

But honestly our favorite taqueria was Tacos El Huequito. We got in from our flight late and this place was still open. The tacos were absolutely delicious, even though this though this place seems more "chain-like" or less hole-in-the-wall. We ate here like 2-3x.

Palaza Zocalo (absolutely must get a balcony restaurant)

Teotihuacan (pyramids outside Mexico city)

Frida Kahlo's house

Any museums (literally)

El Lardo (breakfast)

Pasillo de Humo (Oaxaca cuisine)

Coyoacan Market

Don't forget to eat churros y chocolate

Random remarks on Boston (December 2022)

High-trust society over here

They are completely shameless about Christmas 

The buildings look Christmas

The ground is white 

The people dress like Christmas 

The music is only Christmas, no shame 

They act like Christmas, hard to explain, I think this is called "east coast demeanor" 

Boston has insane book reading culture 

The population is more ethnically Irish, very different from CA

As a result, my brain easily mistakes everyone as being the rebellious goth kid from the high schools in movies. I would say the incidence of face piercings is more common too 

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In Boston, it's normal for people to butt into your conversations. I've had this happen 4 times. It's great, it feels like I'm talking to everyone all the time

My booming voice sure helps

"Crying in H Mart? I loved that book I cried at the end!"

"I too got a Taro reading once. It was the craziest thing to ever happen to me. I was at the office and…" 🏴‍☠️ (yarr)

"Adam's Family is a show from the 60s."

"Are you talking about BU? We go to BU!" 

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Homeless lady approaches Bostonite

Bostonite man, cigarette in mouth: "Stay outta my way!"  🚬 

Lady: "Can I have a cigarette?"

Man reaches into pocket 

Lady: "And one for my husband preferably too"

Man gives cigarettes, walks off 

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It feels like "rebellious kids riding the subway" 

And then the subway fills up with college kids are you're like… wtf is this subway a big SCHOOL BUS?!?

Whoa the entire plane is a school bus too 😳

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I tried lifting my luggage into the trunk of a low sedan when I got to Boston

Then I had lower back pain for half the trip 

I went to a massage place and the Chinese lady fixed my lower back pain but gave me upper back pain 

Just like full fml honestly 

Vietjet remark

Here's an interesting remark: every Vietjet flight I've been on, the flight attendants ask for your boarding pass to make sure / tell you where to sit. But this Korean flight DLI to ICN they aren't doing that. 

Quán ăn xôi gà

This family has hilarious personality 

Who own the quán ăn 

Like super chaotic yelling to the kitchen, no English speaking, everyone from the toddler to the bà s, very unfazed by life, I speak super bad Vietnamese and they're totally unfazed, just like speak back in full Vietnamese. Feels pretty good because it makes me feel like I fit in 

Trash everywhere but they sweeped it up, this place is very popular bc so many delivery drivers picking up from here, huge turnover 

They're working at 10:30pm on a Friday so they are allowed to be grumpy but they probably aren't grumpy they're just super local Vietnamese lol

The kind who aren't trying to show off that they know English.

Also bc dalat is full of 5am morning people so this is probably pretty late for them

Dalat people are not happy go lucky like Đà Nẵng. Kind of stoic. Doesn't mean they're unhappy, just not that emotional. Likely very happy and peaceful with life

A perpetual shortage of office supplies (story)

One of my guilty pleasures is buying Scotch tape in bulk. I grew up with 2 siblings and 2 parents who are very crafty/handy. As a result, there was always a shortage of office supplies in the house, like tape, or Sharpies, or rubber bands, mechanical pencils, or nice pens. What happens when your room runs out of stuff is you start to pilfer from the neighboring rooms, like dad's office, or older sister's room, or re-pilfering something pilfered from you in little sister's room. Then there is the humorous occurrence (and recurrence) whereby you go to hunt tape or white copy paper from dad's office, but there simply is no tape or copy paper there, just a naked tape roll or a naked printer. Or you're trying to steal a rubber band while packing for your trip, but the only rubber bands left in dad's office are the ones that have dried and biodegrade in your hand as soon as you use them.

Okay, so why not just go to the local Staples in the neighborhood? Well, because the prices for consumer quantities of office supplies are super expensive, and we have a family business so dad can just bring home the office supplies bought in bulk. Except when you're harried with a family business, bringing home office supplies is more or less the last thing on your mind. Or if it's bunch of Five Star / Mead notebooks for school, you really should be waiting for the back to school sale at Target. So you can buy a tiny spare something from the Staples, but only when you're really desperate, and you'll feel guilty about it. And all the while, you're waiting for your parents to bring home the office supplies that never come.

The other thing, too, is that I hold these truths to be self evident that not all tapes are created equal. Scotch tape is literally so much nicer than an off-brand. Same goes with masking tape and packaging tape. Have you ever been late to an occasion and in a hurry to tape something, only for the tape to commit active sabotage against you? Flimsy, breaks easy, doesn't rip right, peel it but adhesive comes out or sticks to your hands, the absolute worst is when the "start" of the tape says screw you and sticks back to the tape roll, and then you're left there like a doofus feeling the tape in circles trying to find the start again. And if you just trimmed your nails, good luck picking it back open. Lame tape just causes you so much pain.

Maybe a year ago I pulled the trigger and bought a bulk amount of Scotch tape off of Amazon. Yes, it felt great. Then, like humanitarian aid relief or the Easter bunny, I airdropped Scotch tape in corners all over the house. I even bought 3 of those super solid black tape holders you find in teachers' classrooms. What a bougie purchase. For a few sweet moments, I will be able to enjoy Scotch tape abundance in the house. Because that stuff's gonna get eaten up super fast. I made sure to keep a secret cache of remaining tape rolls in my room.

I joke with my mom and tell her, "I know I've made it in life when one day I manage to live in a house with infinite office supplies."

There's also a fun nostalgic component to living with a scarcity of office supplies. Because when you were off at college, whoever still at home was likely pilfering your desk and rearranging the distribution of resources. And when they're away, it's your turn to cannibalize their desk.

Dalat strawberries

In Thailand I drank 1,000,000 blended mango. In Dalat I will drink 1,000,000 blended strawberries. We're on #3.

Actually, not sure I like it enough to binge on it. But might just be because I had 3 in a single day.

2:45am Dalat

It's 2:45am and a rooster is crowing. Someone needs to tell that rooster it isn't sunrise yet.

Vietnamese classifiers

Today I learned about the grammatical use of classifiers in Vietnamese. The main one is cái but there's one that's for just bành mí 😂😂😂. It's called "Ổ". And it's literally just used for saying "a bành mí". 😂😂😂

Big Brother

It's interesting how Big Brother is a pejorative in English, but Big Brother is just a normal pronoun in many Asian countries and is part of the 1,0000 year old social order. For different reasons, of course, but interesting yet still.

Culture shock is in the details

Sometimes I think other people experience less culture shock not because they are more robust but simply because they are much less detail oriented. Here's a great example of culture shock which I think other people wouldn't even notice. Outside the US, particularly in these Asian travels, it seems like it's good service for the restaurant staff to clear your plates as quickly as possible, because it means they're being attentive. But from an American perspective, it feels unnatural to the way we're used to, because of the restaurant back home is clearing your dishes quickly, it means they're trying to rush you out the door to make more money by speeding the turnover over their tables. So a "nicer" / "fancier" restaurant in the US will let you take your time, linger with the empty plates, sort of pretend you don't exist and that you have all the time in the world to be allowed to sit there. Interesting how on one side of the world, good customer service is putting a huge spotlight on you, and on the other side of the world, it's maximum privacy. 

It's Not Rocket Surgery (story)

I think when you are working in any kind of physical laboratory, it has an interesting effect of making you feel self conscious, or humbled, or both, about your intrinsic human clumsiness with regard to manipulating the real world. Or maybe that's just me, honestly.

But when I'm in the lab, I feel like (am direly familiar with the fact that) even one careless spasm-flick of the wrist is enough to ruin everything. And the thing is, I kind of just like flail around all the time. Sometimes for fun, sometimes because I'm bored, sometimes idk, I'm busy thinking or something. I think because when you're sitting at a desk, as one does in the ivory tower, you can kind of just derp around all you want because everything is in idea-land, you can't break math or writing by sitting in your chair funny. Worst thing you can do is fall asleep at your desk and get drool on your notebook. I did that on Thursday this week.

What I mean is like knocking glass and shattering it, spilling liquids, destroying hard work, contaminating something because your hand isn't that good at holding steady, like dropping the thing in the thing (oops), or like poking past the electrophoresis gel something something now it's an ugly mess, poking the colony wrong or something (screw colonialism anyway), and then like taking too long so now the stupid microbes from the air are contaminating your thing even though you swear you were being careful and using a flame and, sigh, idk.

The humor is that a laboratory is an academic place where all the bookworms can descend from the ivory tower and face their worse enemy slash greatest weakness (clumsiness) face-to-face, by making a mess of things worse than a zebra in a hospital. Or is it just me?

And all that's apparently par for the course, but maybe at some point we can just admit genetics is an input which might make me more par for the course in this particular axis? Clumsiness.

One time, in a plant biology lab, I got put on "seed duty." I made up that term, but I got paid to winnow seeds from the teeny tiny Arabidopsis plants and put them into envelopes. Make sure the mesh is perfectly clean via ethanol between each threshing (winnowing? Idk i'm not a farmer) so that the gene lines aren't interfering. It's very repetitive. Though a lot of labwork is like that anyway. It's definitely a different type of work than usual for someone whose area of study was not biology but computer science, but ultimately I signed up for bio lab work and know that tedious things come with the territory (are typically not even worth mentioning, let alone complain about). It was sufficiently noble work in my eyes because it genuinely freed up the professor to do higher productive tasks or they otherwise would have had to do this themselves (genuinely, it's nice to have clear counterfactual impact).

I call it "seed duty" because I got reassigned to "seed duty" after previously having had the opportunity to do sexy bacterial genetic engineering instead. And being reassigned was definitely not to be taken personally (that is the most oatmeal truthful version of the story), and I know that---it's just being reassigned to what the professor most needed help with---but given my historical caricature of extreme clumsiness (which I had not yet revealed to this lab; the other stuff was in classroom labs and other labs), I simply couldn't help but wonder whether I had been assigned seed duty because I was too clumsy for anything but.

One time Professor walked by and at quick glance mistook a box of empty (spare) envelopes for the box of finished (seed-filled) envelopes, and since the box of empty envelopes arbitrarily had all its envelopes upside down, they asked, calmly, "(Omg) Are all the envelopes upside down??" ("Are all of the progeny of these plant lines I painstakingly modified and raised completely mixed up and ruined?!"). And I quite jitteringly reassured Professor, "No, those are empty envelopes. The seed envelopes are over here." And Professor thought nothing else of the situation and moved on. But the reason I felt a little queasy afterwards was because I think putting the envelopes upside down in the box (the envelopes are unsealed) is something I might totally be capable of. It's not that Professor thought I was particularly incompetent and thus more likely to manifest this failure, but still I felt bad because I felt like I might have been deserving of such a disdain. For seed duty, of all things. It's most likely that perhaps all humans are highly capable of simple mistakes ruining experiments in labs, as my much more experienced biology friends reassure me, but it's remarkable because when you're in the shoes of it all it feels like, wow, why do I have to be so paranoid-detailed in the lab all the time? Is it because I am just a newb or because I intrinsically suck?

Travel reflection from Saigon, freewrite (might be boring)

This is just a quick freewrite. I think I got food poisoning 2 days ago, but I took azithromycin as soon as I felt my body just barely starting to feel sick, and pow! I think it kicked the shit out of the infection. Because within 36 hours I had a 99.5F fever, but by 48 hours the fever broke, and by maybe 60 hours I felt recovered. Which is remarkable because I tend to heal slowly. It's likely that azithromycin was effective against the infecting pathogen in this instance, because I've never had such a quick recovery after a fever. I also did a rapid antigen and was COVID negative, so ruled that out. Usually after a fever, I'd still be sluggish, or weak, or have chills, or sensitive to cold temperatures for like 7-20 days after (lol), or develop a cough or something, but nah.

So yeah, I basically recovered super fast.

I also started taking some Vietnamese lessons for the first time. About time, considering how much immersion and Google Translate learning I'd done. Perhaps overdue. But that's okay. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. Just a few days of classes because after Saigon I'm off to Dalat. This first class we did numbers and time (calendar). Super great, I could already see the results kicking in because my comprehension of numbers went way up as I went to dinner and dealt money.

This freewrite is kinda boring, sorry, it's just a recollection of the day as I'm getting ready to sleep.

Or it could just be Grab

Re: the prev post, Or Grab has managed to establish this trust with their platform or guarantees

Social trust

Social trust in Vietnam is unbelievable. I got contact lenses delivered to my office, maybe $90-100 in cash payment. But they sent a Grab motorcycle driver. So that means the optometry made the Grab driver front $100 (2 million VND), hold onto the contacts as collateral, then get his money back and shipping cost from me in cash upon delivery

Each ride the driver makes maybe a little less than 20k VND, which means he fronted 100 rides worth of labor 😂

Could you imagine a restaurant asking an Uber eats driver to front them $100? Now wage adjusted $500-700?

This is one advantage of living in a society that is thousands of years old: the social trust is unusually high.

A bet paid off in friendship (story)

I don't know about you, but for me the pandemic was a remarkably uninspiring time. That, and a bunch of other pandemic things that simply will go unmentioned for the purposes of this commentary.

So I found myself lugubriously lost as to how to spend the summer of 2021. I wanted an adventure. So I proposed working in a friendly acquaintance's biology lab for free (free because he was broke, and I was useless). I was a complete garbage novice at biology. It wasn't clear that this time spent would yield dividends for my career, and as I already mentioned, it wasn't remunerative in any direct senses of the word.

So there I was for the summer of 2021, a garbage novice shoveling garbage E. coli LB plates into the garbage can (because I was a garbage novice, the plates were garbage because I forgot the simple step of adding antibiotic, hence losing 1.5 weeks' worth of work).

But honestly, it was so much fun hanging out and learning from my friendly acquaintance turned friend turned one of my best friends. We made ham sandwiches using bread and meat from the cheap deli next door (I got addicted to balsamic vinegar) and discussed world affairs over salt baked chicken and rice at the cheap Chinese restaurant next door.

2.5 months' labor at a rousing compensation of $0, and I made a best friend. Not a bad deal. Decent yield to the bet.

Westminster Dog Show

I think it's hilarious how the Westminster Dog Show sounds like something very posh taking place in Great Britain, but it's actually just in Westminster, California, which is kind of just a meh place if you've ever been there or know anything about it.

Gentleman savior (story)

I went out for seafood and beer with locals in the beach city of Da Nang, Vietnam a month ago, and when I asked where the crab cracker was, they smiled. There's no crab cracker, they told me. Locals use their teeth. Mind you, I come from a dental family. So I was like not... gonna do that. But they pressured me to do it. So I gently pressed down on the crab legs using my molars, like a toothless baby mumming on a chew stick(?) (whatever, idk, that BPA-free baby chew toy thing). I guess you could say I deliberately "struggled" to use my teeth, but that's also half true because I was chicken shit about breaking my teeth. Watching me, they told me it pained them to watch me struggle, and so the Chi (Chi = loosely, "big sister") took a metal spoon and took the crab leg outta my hand and whacked the leg open with the spoon.

They told me, in an orthogonal conversation teaching me about the differences between north and southern culture in Vietnam, that in the conservative north there's still a heavy emphasis on being a "man" or being a "gentleman." And one of these gentlemanly gestures that locals do when eating seafood is that the gentleman is supposed to sacrifice their teeth to break open the crab leg, and then give it to their lady. So the light humor at the table was that the Chi was the gentleman savior for the day. And indeed she was! Otherwise I wouldn't have had any crab to eat. I was there for the crab, man.

Landmark of summer at home (story)

The landmark for me is the smell of summer evening at home in southern California. I don't know why, but once the sun sets and it's in the middle of summer, it always smells like that. It's like the smell of summer lawn grass combined with the smell of bushes that have been gently brushed by the breeze. It's such a great smell, complemented by the penetration of cool, dry air through the mesh of the window after a hot day. The smell is not identical to a sunset breeze in Hawaii, but it emanates the same vibe. It's the smell of cozy sore limbs after swim practice, and dinner outside on the patio with my family, and the smell of summer school and summer camp. It tells you that everything is okay. You don't need to worry. You can play Minecraft or watch a movie into the night. I love this landmark, because it's the landmark of southern California. It reminds you to chill tf out. When it's summertime in NorCal, it simply doesn't remind me to chill tf out. It tells me to stress or grind or something. My suburban hometown is sufficiently sparse that there's really nothing else to do but be at peace.

The new post COVID world for germaphobes

I love the new post-COVID world. If someone behind me on the plane is coughing, I can just take my frustration out on them by giving them a mask 😂 And they wear it

Or at least here in Asia

Mango sticky rice

I got tired of indulging myself in Thailand but then this Vietnamese man at the airport bought 5 boxes of mango sticky rice, presumably to bring back to his family, and I wasn't gonna let him have all the fun, so I went and bought my 50,000th mango sticky rice 

Thais do smile

So far the Thai are still the most smiley people I've encountered. Even when I crack a very small smile at them and they reciprocate with a huge grin, and faster than most peoples. This is true of both Bangkok and Phuket.

P.S. Portion sizes are indeed huge in Thailand, and it's true of both Bangkok and Phuket.

Why do I hear a lot of Indian music in Thailand?

Is it a coincidence, or is it the case that Thai people like Indian music? Is it because of the geographic proximity to India, and thus cultural overlap (slash ancient history of Buddhist pilgrimages between India and Thailand)?

Putting stuff on scrambled eggs (story)

I love eating scrambled eggs, especially when they're cooked in the soft "hotel style." I eat too many eggs, and my mom chides me to watch my cholesterol. What I also love are unique renditions of scrambled eggs, in very subtle "seasonings."

One of the "seasonings" I discovered was a very light touch of maple syrup on scrambled eggs. Sounds gross, but you have to try it. I think I got addicted to this taste because I used to have hungover moments in the dining hall at school, and I'd just put a bunch of salad, waffles, and scrambled eggs into a singular salad bowl, so the maple syrup would run onto the eggs. And eating is such a welcome comfort when you're hungover. So it's somewhat an acquired taste, but I swear it's good! And upon reflection, that's probably not the first time I ate maple syrup on eggs. If you've ever ordered the breakfast pack at McDonalds (pancakes plus scrambled eggs plus sausage and orange juice), I'm pretty sure the maple syrup collides with the eggs too. So I must have eaten it as a kid. As a picky kid I remember the maple syrup getting on the eggs, and thinking it was gross, but honestly I think that's where the nostalgia of the taste comes from: McDonald's breakfast as a kid during a roadtrip + college hangover comfort food.

This morning I was eating a breakfast taco, and so I think I either tasted a hint lime on scrambled eggs, or maybe I imagined it. Either way, it tasted delicious. I need to try lime on scrambled eggs again.

A country's snacks as gifts (story)

I've been traveling through Asia, and one of the most fun gifts I've gotten from making friends with locals is when they give me snacks. Because as a foreigner, I'd simply never conceive of what snacks are good to buy. My favorite snack gift were these rolled cookies that have a shape that looks a little bit like pigs in a blanket, but they have pineapple jam inside. Oh my goodness, it was delicious! I pigged out on that. The other one that was so good was bakkwa jerky. The best part is that you pack these snacks in your luggage or backpack, and when you're traveling in the next country and it's late at night and you're starving and have nothing to eat, you just pig out on those snacks your friends gave you. It's a great, devious gift, because it definitely makes you think of them in your vulnerable, hungry moments!

Morning routine (story)

Some days I'm super lazy and don't even want to do my morning routine. That was especially the case during the pandemic, when all the days started blending together, and you could just roll out of bed and log onto a zoom meeting.

If I procrastinate my morning routine, then I'm basically procrastinating the rest of my responsibilities for the day, because I use the fact that my morning routine isn't done yet as a blocker to avoiding work. Like the "I'm still sleeping, meh lying in bed on my phone" kind of barrier. But also, once I've finished my morning routine I feel much more willing to get stuff done, or do stuff.

So maybe 9 months ago I started using a digital checklist on Google Keep that's literally my morning routine. It's quite silly, it has stuff like "brush teeth," "wash face," and "put on contact lenses," but I get the satisfaction from checking them off. Then I feel willing to check off my actual TODOs.

I don't have to use the checklist every day, just on days when I'm not motivated. Or I'm traveling and in a new place; I feel like I've gotten a bit discombobulated because the environment has changed, so then having the checklist helps me maintain a certain constance.

Almost every morning since then, I play "Wake Up, Get Down" and then start checking off my morning routine checklist (https://open.spotify.com/track/1gEB5InUzgNLHPv8H34v54?si=7d4833e8d0fa4d67). I think the funniest part (or most mildly amusing part) is opening the Google Keep app on my phone, and "unchecking" all of the checked boxes from the previous morning I had to use the checklist, to reuse the checklist, because I think from a design perspective I don't think any software designer would have anticipated someone unchecking and rechecking an entire list constantly.

Supernuclear family (story)

My family home is in southern [County A], but the problem is that life happens in [County Z], whereas County A is encased in amber. So my older sister and I use my uncle-and-aunt’s house in [beach town of County Z] as a hub or staging center. It’s also just super nice to go for runs along the beach.

When I’m squatting at their house, I walk my little cousin to school. I’m 13 years older than her. We talk about school or what a beautiful morning it is. It’s really nice.

I’m very lucky because I have what I call a supernuclear family. My mom’s younger sister married my dad’s younger brother. That’s the Beach family. So I have two younger cousins, age 13 and 10, that look and act a lot like me, because of course they are more genetically related to me than normal first-cousins. It’s like having extra siblings, but actually it’s quite weirder. One is the age gap, which means I can see developmental characteristics in my super cousins that are eerily repeated in myself and my actual siblings, but now from a removed perspective. My hypothesis is that the other factor is that these aren’t my siblings, and so birth order hasn’t influenced their development to differentiate from my personality. So again, it’s more like mirror images 10 years repeat instead of siblings.

It’s nice to have a supernuclear family because it’s like I got many of the benefits of having a large nuclear family for free.

Almost every weekend, my parents hang out with my uncle and aunt. We’ll either go north to Beach, or they’ll come south to our house in County A. I don’t know how intentional that is, or whether that was ultimately a product of family dynamics or the fact that my uncle and aunt are raising kids and so naturally they are inclined to spend more time with family (the way people usually do once they start having kids). Likewise, my parents are empty nesting these last few years so of course they like to be around the kiddos.

I think the other thing that’s really sweet is that my uncle and aunt are like best friends to my parents, just based on how much time they spend together. That’s an observation I’ve made that has never been explicitly pointed out. Part of this can also be explained that both of my parents’ families were “latchkey keys” as refugee American immigrants, and in both circumstances it was quite natural that “your family is your best friend because they were all you had”. But anyway, it’s really nice to see.

The supernuclear family identity is quite strong, [...] [we went on vacation together to Singapore, for example.]

I should mention we’ve had a group chat for our supernuclear family for years now, and I think that helps with my perception that we are one cohesive unit or team.