In Defense of Friction

On the Rough Stuff

You can’t start a fire without a spark.

—Bruce Springsteen

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I am arguing for the blister.

The ache.

The conversation you wanted to leave.

The book that bored you for forty pages.

The hill you could have driven around.

I am arguing for friction. Which is another word for life.

Friction is the texture of life. A life without it is no life at all. It’s a life spent sliding sans direction, purchase, or surface rough enough to hold a footprint.

We’ve been sold a lie. That the good life is the smooth one. That every hitch is a bug, every delay a failure, every bit of resistance something to route around.

Life today is one giant slippery slope. One-click. Skip intro. Autocomplete. DoorDash. The whole economy is pitched toward removing the very things that make a day feel like a day.

Without friction, you can’t get a grip.

Friction is how you know you’re here.

The callus on your palm means you gripped something.

The ache in your legs means you climbed.

The argument you didn’t walk out of means you loved someone enough to stay.

The book that took you three weeks means you actually read it.

The prayer you didn’t want to say means you meant it.

Friction slows you down. It sinks your incisors into the very best moments; it masticates and digests the sweet stuff of life.

Every frictionless surface is one you just slide off. You cannot stand on glass. You cannot build on ice. You cannot remember a day in which nothing required anything of you. Those days blur and blend and disappear.

Think of the last week you actually remember. There was friction in it. Something went wrong. Something took longer than it should have. Someone said something that stuck. You had to work for it. That’s why it stayed.

The frictionless life promises you time back. It lies. What it gives you is more of the same hour, repeated. A smooth day leaves no residue. You wake up and it’s gone.

I am not against convenience. I am against the belief that convenience is the point. That the goal of a life is to remove every obstacle between wanting and having. Because the obstacle is often where the meaning lives. The gap between wanting and having is where you become the kind of person deserving.

You do not want what comes easy. You want what you worked for. You want the meal you cooked, not the one delivered. You want the friend you argued with and kept, not the one you let drift. You want the struggle that cost blood, sweat, and tears, not an afternoon.

So take the long way.

Write the letter.

Have the hard conversation.

Read the book that bores you for forty pages before it cracks open.

Cook the thing that takes all afternoon.

Walk when you could drive.

Stand up when you could scroll.

Pick up something heavy. Carry it somewhere.

Notice that your hands hurt, your back aches, and your mouth curls into a smile.

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share in a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on X.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom