Friction and Struggle

There is a lot to be said for moving fast, and to move fast you have to reduce friction — you have to make doing things effortless. But frictionless experiences cheapen life.

Take self-checkout at the grocery store. It seems like a win for everyone, right? Fewer staff to pay, faster checkout, and no unnecessary human interactions. (In fact, I'm reminded of a startup that made an app where you'd scan your stuff as you went through the store, pay with Apple Pay, and then just walk out — no need to go through a checkout line. It was bananas, and I loved it.)

But then, just yesterday, I went through a regular checkout line and the cashier was just the nicest guy. He chatted me up in the most affable way, and as I was collecting my bags he started chatting up the next guy in line. A highlight of my weekend.

Same with talking to support folks on the phone — more friction, but I love it when I can get them to laugh at my wise cracks. I'd like to see an AI chatbot vibe with me.

Unfortunately, forces around us continue to push us towards convenience, towards frictionless experience, away from struggle. And that's fine, I guess? I like that Apple Music recommends songs so I don't have to struggle through finding new music. I like that social media feeds bring a whole bunch of people together so I don't have to struggle to curate a good following list. And maybe it's okay if it's super easy to sign up for a service, even if unsubscribing is really hard, if not impossible, right?

But if we remove too much friction and things become too convenient, even the smallest setback and feel devastating.

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I loved watching Alysa Liu's gold medal-winning performance on the (ironically) frictionless ice. Her fellow competitors put on amazing performances, but that's it — they all looked like they were performing (and very well, I might add).

Liu wasn't performing. She was playing.

And she's said as much — she's made it clear that she's not in it for winning anymore. She skates because she loves it. She loves the struggle. She loves doing hard things. And while I'm sure she's not complaining about winning a gold medal, I bet her smile would have been just as wide coming off the ice if she hadn't made it on the podium.

It's not about the individual performance for her. It's about the process — every moment that led her to that performance. There is no shortcut. There is no cheat code. There is only the desire to do something hard, to work, to make mistakes, to fail repeatedly and try again — to struggle — and eventually overcome.

And I don't want to conflate struggling with suffering. Struggling will not always be fun, but there can still be joy in it — joy in the little wins, joy in muddling through with your team, joy in the little breaks between bouts. I'm reminded of the idyllic scene of the Cratchit house in A Christmas Carol where the family, and especially Tiny Tim, still finds joy in the midst of their abysmal struggle.

Alysa Liu is a great example of that too. After a successful career, she retired in 2022, specifically saying of her sport "There were many, many times when I didn't enjoy it." But she suffered through it, won many championships and an Olympic medal.

And then she retired. She was done. She had suffered enough.

But obviously it wasn't over. She still loved to be on the ice. This time, though, she was done suffering. She would now skate on her own terms, wear what she wanted to wear, choose her own music. She did everything she could to make it fun again.

And it looks like she was successful.

I've really struggled with my spaceship game. I love it, I have a vision for what it's supposed to look like, but I've felt like every day that it's not done, I'm more and more of a failure. Worse, every day I don't make some progress, I'm falling behind. It's discouraging to release a project like this as open source so I can hopefully get some outside contributors to help me build it, and then still do most of the work myself.

I've burned out on my spaceship game many times.

But I still love it. I can visualize what it will eventually be like. And it feels tragic to think that it might never be realized. But that's exactly what will happen if I can't find a sustainable way to maintain progress and momentum without burning out.

In this case, the solution was clear — I needed to slow down and lower expectations, both for me and everyone watching my progress. That means no deadlines, no due dates, no promises. I'll work on it when I get time, and I'll work on the parts that I want to work on. And if it stops being fun, I'll take a break and do something else for a few days or weeks.

But I've been through the cycle enough times to know that I'll always come back — taking a break doesn't mean the end, it really is just a break. That helps me to not feel like a failure when progress grinds to a halt.

It's nowhere close to being done, but getting it done isn't the point. The point is the process — discovering how the game should work piece by piece, putting it together, finding unexpected links between the different features, stretching myself as a software developer, project manager, musician, and designer. And dreaming. Lots of dreaming.

Just a few more thoughts I've found about friction and struggle that I enjoyed.

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