The Stubborn Necessity of Friction

We all want to be like marbles on glass

I work in the world of high-growth technology startups. I have spent enough time studying the principles of technology design to come to a sobering realization. The reason that the technology around us works so seamlessly is because someone saw friction in their or others' lives, and wondered: what if I could be paid untold riches to eliminate that friction, to smooth over that bump in the road?

Consider delivery applications of all kinds, the sort of technology that takes the virtual space of the smartphone and lets it, like a magic wand, summon matter out of thin air. Apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash are obvious, of course, but consider also the casual hookups offered by Tinder or Grindr, or the human Swiss army knives delivered to you by TaskRabbit, or the all-important near-instant fulfillment of Amazon's expanding same-day delivery options. These apps and the hooks they sink into us make two things clear: first, that we truly do need what they provide; and second, that the process of acquiring what we need from them -- food, groceries, sex, or whatever you want from Amazon -- should be as instantaneous and effortless as possible. Accessing their services should be like rolling a marble across glass.

Do you find it strange or incredible that there are armies of bright, capable, well-paid and diligent workers out there whose job it is to get you what you want in three clicks instead of four? They obsess about nudging you past sticking points in that buying decision -- a full cart but no checkout, a declined card, not having opened the app in a day or two -- to ensure you ultimately return to close the deal.

The smartphone and the way it has miniaturized the Internet and all the products built upon it has fashioned for us a moral and intellectual environment, one which is almost inescapable and almost invisible. Indeed, it is often physically invisible. If I see a person on their phone across the room, I can have no idea what they are actually doing. Trading stocks? Ordering food? Reading the news? Committing crime? Every space, and every moment of every day, has been transformed by these tools into a near-frictionless environment for doing almost anything, for fulfilling every inchoate desire almost before it has been formed into a conscious one. The interface between our minds and the synthetic, digital, liquid, frictionless fulfillment of our every desire is becoming ever-faster, cleaner, and more immersive. Entire sectors of our economy are devoted to shrinking the gap between us and our impulses.

I want to ask a question that on its surface is dense and somewhat obvious. What is friction good for? We love and hate the physical phenomenon of friction. Friction lets us grip things, walk on floors, sit on chairs, hold things together with nails and screws. But on the other hand, friction gives us blisters and skinned knees, it makes it hard to open jars or move heavy furniture. We might come to the conclusion that friction is sometimes good and sometimes bad. It's good when it helps us do something, and it's bad when it hurts us or prevents us from doing something we need to do.

I think that the same must be true of logistical, financial, bureaucratic, intellectual, and relational friction, the very kind of friction we spend a lot of time, money, and effort to eliminate. How can we be sure we’re eradicating the right kinds?

I want to use three different examples to illustrate what use friction could possibly have and to urge caution about accidentally eradicating the good kind of friction with the bad.

Intellectual Friction

Intellectual friction might be the easiest point of agreement. We'd likely agree that the clash between one side and the other of an argument might bring about a winner or, at a minimum, some useful clarity. It is literally the friction: the heat, the abrasion, of these kinds of conflicts that puts ideas in sharp relief and clarifies their strong points. Ideally, open debate fashions truth out of the raw material of ideas. A thesis is not meant to survive the initial onslaught of antithesis: as a popular concept attributed to Helmuth von Moltke goes, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Plans are improved by the friction of first contact into something that ultimately wins the war. A synthesis arises out of the conflict between ideas.

Process Friction

The nemesis of the technology companies I parodied in the introduction is process friction. It is what happens when you try to do anything more complicated than breathing, or refreshing a social media feed. Life can feel dominated by this friction, between you and the almost-but-not-quite achievement, and so it is no wonder that there is money to be made for anyone who can break down those barriers and slap advertising on the bulldozer.

But what does the presence of obstacles do to our goals? They actually transform the way we set them. If barriers to some goal are too high, it's likely that we won't even bother trying. We'll filter out the lesser goals and only stick to the ones we are most interested in or the only ones, no matter how hard, that we really can't avoid, like earning enough money to feed our family, or caring for an ailing relative, or raising children.

Using the word 'goal' makes it seem like everything we set out to accomplish is large, long-term, and noble. But not every goal is. We are humans, with short attention spans and a wild bundle of contradictory and destructive impulses. But there is also at our back, nipping at our heels, the undertow pull of destruction -- the abyss, the void, the death-drive, the escapist yearning for self-immolation -- that sows chaos, disorder, and death in our world. Modernity’s technology has made so many things easier: with the snap of my finger, I can find and reach out to a long-lost friend, I can send money to a person in need, I can order hard drugs to my doorstep, I can bully a stranger online to death, or I can download detailed instructions on a dozen ways to kill myself. Shortening the distance between me and every transitory impulse that streaks through my brain is not without its downsides. But technology and society is oriented around bringing us closer to these goals, no matter how impulsive or ill-conceived. Friction can save lives, just like fences, railings, and bollards do.

Friction also can make us grateful for and appreciative of what we can accomplish despite barriers, especially when the obstacles are so difficult that they require help to overcome. There is a special bond forged between those who have successfully overcome friction to accomplish something: a shared recognition of the real difficulties, doubts, and trials faced, and a gratitude for the relief of having passed through those difficulties to reach the goal, and satisfaction in the object of the struggle.

Relational Friction

We often use the word friction to describe marriage problems, and always as if it is this regrettable phase, like an illness, that a couple must just get through as best they can and hope never to revisit. Of course, marital friction is not a positive good, either. Ideally, it signifies that a couple is maturing and deepening their ties, even as conflicts arise. Conflict undertaken with a shared goal can, by the wrestling and ultimate synthesis, make a hybrid unity that becomes more precious and beautiful over time.

Like with intellectual friction generally, relational friction can throw deep matters into stark relief; it can clarify and refine pillars of life that come to be shared by a couple. A frictionless marriage, by contrast, one where there is no conflict to draw forth the strata of the mind and soul, may achieve over time nothing more than the quiet self-contentment of pleasantness without the deep satisfaction of a long and complex life lived in a shared mental, emotional, and spiritual space.

Mutual Obligations

To be useful and not destructive, these kinds of friction require deep ties and mutual, indissoluble obligations between the two sides of the conflict. Drawing away from intellectual friction is an epistemic retreat that can breed misery, mental idleness, and confusion. Allowing impediments to good goals to get the best of us can, over time, teach us helplessness. Relational friction, once fled, metastasizes unresolved tension into bitterness and a tendency to treat subsequent friction (and the underlying relationship) as a thing one can just put off like an article of clothing.

Or, to put it more bluntly, friction implies two surfaces acting in tandem. You need both thesis and antithesis for synthesis, worker and work for fruit, husband and wife for marriage. That is a key reason why friction often hurts, not helps.

How do we know when we're experiencing good, welcome, and salutary friction, and when we're just getting burned up? We first might think about what productive purpose the conflict could serve. What direction is it pushing us? Sometimes, this kind of inquiry by itself can actually transform destructive friction into generative friction. Maria Konnikova interviewed psychologists studying trauma and resilience, who made the persuasive case that if we think of a difficult event as an opportunity to learn and grow instead of as a traumatic experience, it could change whether we actually experience trauma from that event. There are other times, of course, where friction and impediments could probably teach us some useful lesson, but the value of that lesson is far outweighed by the loss of the thing we were striving for. I don't want to learn about the importance of patience by having to saddle a horse and ride ten miles to fetch the doctor if my wife or child is experiencing a genuine medical emergency. Let the lesson wait!

Friction also becomes less useful to our purposes when it is relentless. We're familiar with the danger of some material that fails because it heats up too much from friction. The friction was useful to the functioning of the machine to a point, but it was pushed too far. Friction that is so overwhelming that it causes failure and catastrophe is just not worth it; it has outlived its usefulness.

Finally, there are times when friction is just inappropriate and ought to be eliminated without hand-wringing. Every machine has parts that only work when lubricated, and so to does every life need simple joys and easy wins. Seeking friction for its own sake, reveling in it and disdaining what grace or ease is available to us, is a pathetic masochism that isolates and chafes.

I ask not that we pour sugar in the engine of progress as it finds ever-smaller inconveniences to crush, but only that we grow to recognize the sting of friction and consider the possibility that it could be useful. We have developed the habit of shying away from friction by reflex, a habit that serves us poorly. A prayer most commonly attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr, the mid-century American theologian, sums up this difficult balance well:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”