Hi friends,
Just noodling today. Mind is all sorts of places so I’m just squeezing out strings of semi-related thoughts in a madly spinning world. It all ties together, somehow, though today in more tangled knots than neat bows. Sending my love and care from the west coast to your corner of the world.
Walking around SF is like sustaining a mental deadlift. Every techie Asian I pass on the street reminds me of how proud I could've made my parents if I had just chosen a more reliable track to accumulating generational wealth. I'm straining; I'm strengthening.
It's similar to when I stroll the streets in China. I'm quietly confident in what makes me different until I realize that a) pride is too fickle of a master to serve and b) I'm quick to view passerbys as Chinese-Chinese when in fact, I also look...Chinese.
I also look like I work in tech, in my ethically made white tee, cuffed black pants, and Macbook-gray Peak Design backpack (from their Kickstarter days, my pride must note). Until I start talking—then I sound like neither a native Chinese nor an adopted techie. Just another human wondering out loud if the web3 metaverse does more to exacerbate existing disparities than alleviate them.
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Walking around SF takes me back to college. As an enterprising intern, I was morally obligated to track down the free events with highest professional upside. I slid into Figma's launch party at a Soma warehouse; I slept over at a LinkedIn hackathon in Sunnyvale. I toured IDEO thanks to an MBA intern I made acquaintance with; I met one of their legal designers at a Cuyana panel. Sweet proximity to success—so close I could lick it, but not quite taste it.
—
Amy Brown—famous for pioneering Wendy's sassy Twitter personality—on leaving the dream job at Figma:
“I left Wendy’s to freelance for a little bit, then jumped back into full-time employment. I worked for Postmates, then worked on a campaign to impeach the president, which then turned into Tom Steyer’s presidential campaign. I then took a little time off and ended up at Figma, my most recent job, where I was for a little bit over a year. I found myself in a position that's pretty ideal for a lot of social media managers. There was never really a crisis, no need to work on nights and weekends, and the community was really positive and upbeat. The dream. But despite all that, I still mentally couldn’t get into it. And I think that’s what really solidified for me that I needed to leave and figure out what I want to do next and in the long-term.
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It's hard to produce non-performative writing on tech. Critiquing the optimism feels too cool and too predictable, knowing it'll find soft landing on cynical ears. It's easier to be smart and perceptive, rather than kind and compassionate—but have we already forgotten the lessons of 2020?
Compassion cannot live without optimism. The underlying hope is a necessary force, reminiscent of the resilience it takes to work in tech's perceived archenemy: policy.
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I recently had breakfast at The Mill, a nice cafe that carries nice jam and the NYT in print (bless!).
My flatlay feels disconcerting. Here I am, with my apricot-plum saba jam and lemon ricotta on rye bread, perfect espresso with seltzer, side by side with Afghanistan and its devastating tumult.
As an international business student in D.C., diplomacy and crisis infiltrated my everyday—yet once I left the city, it quickly deserted my concerns. It was a world I thought I wanted to enter, though you could say I didn't choose tracks too far off—aren't we all peddling words and charisma?
That said, I don't envy White House speechwriters. A few reactionary annotations on Biden's speech on Afghanistan:
"Our current military mission will be short in time, limited in scope, and focused in its objectives."
Sounds eerily business-like."And our true strategic competitors — China and Russia — would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely."
I thought the focus was Afghanistan?
"We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future."
Is the will lacking? While "future" might not equate to "democracy," it must mean something, seeing people perched on top of planes, like characters chancing their last life in an ominous Super Smash Bros. Brawl stage."I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong."
But what is diplomacy? Does the Taliban speak diplomacy?
—
From 2016-2017, I joined Georgetown's U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, researching and publishing on US-China relations along with eight other fellows, half from China and half from America. I'm embarrassed to pull up my essays, at the thought of how naïve I must sound, with my capitalistic optimism bouncing off against the roots of communism. We congregated twice, once in D.C. and once in Beijing. Our diplomatic roundtable simulations usually involved sitting in a room furnished with bottled water and hot tea and national flags—not unlike corporate advisors in a boardroom?—listening intently to whoever had the stage while frantically articulating response, in topics from nuclear power to crosscultural exchange.
But it wasn't until moments like going out for bubble tea together in Beijing that the latent connections between our relationships emerged. Speaking Chinese around trivial topics unlocked hidden sides of me and un-Othered my fellow fellows. (Naturally, I sound most like a native when ordering tea: 乌龙奶茶,少冰,无糖,加珍珠).
—
You don't have to deal with diplomacy or counterterrorism to know that that Culture cannot be stopped. Unfortunately it’s not feasible for Biden to literally break bread with fleeing Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, or the Taliban.
A crisis hits, and We The Concerned People are again frozen. Do we raise awareness? Do we donate to affiliated organizations? Do we cry out in protest? Where is the righteous anger, who are the vessels of justice?
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It feels like a slow trickle compared to surrounding news coverage, but the updates have begun re: Afghan refugees settling in the U.S., from Seattle to El Paso.
I'm writing this as I listen to The Killers' new album, wherein vocalist Brandon Flowers croons about his hometown of Nephi, Utah. The Pitchfork reviewer isn't satisfied, digging for mention of opioid addiction and socioeconomic disparity. Idyllic times? They never really were.
Nonetheless, it's the sound of coming home. Home: what's been stripped away from Afghans, and what America has to offer. If our presidents can’t break bread together, at least we—as individual hosts and refugees—can.
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Final note: I forgot SF is cold, I just found out all the Uniqlos closed, somebody please send me a jacket.
As ever,
V
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How long will you be in SF? Would love to catch up sometimes!