friction

this is a collaborative post: concepts and words by jeaux carroll and josh martinez.

(josh) It's Saturday morning. I'm heating up tortillas on the comal I've carried with me for years. I hear the sound of fat from the tortilla sizzling against the hot cast iron surface. As the fat renders it heats the moisture between layers in the dough. The tortilla begins to puff in places as the space between those layers fills with steam. Rings of char begin to form on the outer layer where it makes the most contact with the pan. Wafts of steam rise as the smell of warm tortillas fills the house. 

I handle each disc with a deftness that comes from years of practice. My hands have cooked thousands of tortillas on this comal or one just like it. The practice is all muscle memory by now but still takes some focus. My fingers slide, pinch, and flip each tortilla ripe with a heat that scalds but no longer burns.

friction as time

What is friction? To some, it means unplanned interruptions or breaks in a routine that slow down a day. Friction could mean interactions with other people, such as a neighbor, barista, or cashier. Imagine standing at the register when you fumble for your debit card. In that small moment, you might remember an item you forgot to buy. You might process the total and think about how much you have left in the account before rent is due. You might realize that you left your card in your other bag. Or you can skip all that, retrieve your phone from its pocket, and tap to pay. Simple, frictioness, forgettable, easy. 

A minute wasted in line is a minute we could be spending on whatever it is we should be doing instead. Companies today hate friction. Friction is a scourge on a business' profit margins. It's an unwanted delay in an already hectic schedule. It's a process we can optimize to save a fraction of a second. Most of us are grateful for conveniences that keep our busy lives afloat. We order takeout when we're too tired to cook. We video chat with friends on the other side of the country. We (jeaux and josh) wrote this essay with digital conveniences that we can't ignore. Zoom calls reduced the friction that clay tablets or even mailed letters would have had on our essay. 

There are many reasons why we make these conveniences a feature in our lives. But like any panacea, we can’t apply it everywhere and not expect it to have consequences. In a world hell-bent on rushing, friction gives us time to slow down before we crash. 

(jeaux) During high school I was very resistant to friction. I found little value in homework or attending classes just because people expected me to. Teachers had expectations and I was hell bent to subvert them. This is how I ended high school with a 2.1 GPA. 

Fast forward 8 years, and I found myself wanting to learn again. My previous experience with learning convinced me that I would fail. I decided to take the chance anyways and engage with learning through the lens of curiosity. This is how I landed in a beginners French class with my instructor Lucile. Lucile welcomed us into French through the lens of curiosity. It wasn’t just grammar and vocab sheets, rules and regulations, it was real conversations. We would talk about what we were watching on TV or things we had done throughout the week that we liked. This second language became a playground of experimentation where we could make mistakes. As a class, we played together to understand our new language.

Lucile was patient and kind. She would always stress the importance of embracing not knowing. Lucile helped me find comfort in being bad at something with a group of friends who were also terrible at the new language. She transformed the humiliation ritual of being uninformed into a celebration of curiosity. It became a journey we were going on together.  During a one-on-one, she asked me to explain my opinions on flying cars. It wasn’t because I needed to know the words, but because it was fun exercise to put together creatively bad sentences. Through these exercises in nonsense, I began to find ways to welcome the whimsey. French transformed from just a language to an experience in my everyday life. 

why is friction beneficial?

Learning is one of these necessary frictions we find ourselves in. Whether it’s math, science or language—we all have to go through a process of friction to get to a place of knowing. These moments can often be annoying, tedious, and a place of struggle. Like with many things in life, we transform friction when we acknowledge it and take control.

People engage in these small frictions all the time to make life a more enjoyable experience. Some people take ten minutes to make a pour-over coffee that’s just to their liking. Others will go out of their way to a specialty store to get a specific ingredient for their favorite dish. People sitting in traffic may take the time to call a loved one or rock out to their favorite music. In these small moments we take control of friction and acknowledge the value it adds to our life.

One transformative thing about friction is that it helps us invite others in. Together, we can learn something new or connect over shared experiences. What might happen when we invite a friend to go grocery shopping with us? As we walk up and down the aisles we may see items we both like, or we reach for things the other has never noticed. We may learn of new foods, recipes we want to try, and the likes or dislikes of our friends. Grocery shopping can take longer when we rely on another person, but doing so can deepen our bonds. By inviting people into friction, we engage with it as a place for curiosity. This helps us learn more about ourselves, our preferences, and what we have in common.

(josh) I pick jeaux up from the airport for a weekend visit to Seattle. We've been friends online for years but have never met in person. I planned to take them on an errand to the nursery that takes care of my bonsai when I'm out of town. The air is cool as the sun peeks through a sky full of clouds. I drive them to a coffee shop I know about in White Center, one of my favorite neighborhoods in the Seattle area. We talk about the unique coffee flavors the shop offers. They have cardamom syrup! That’s so cool. We chat and get to know each other, filling in details we hadn’t shared before. Drinks complete, I drive us to a nearby ATM to get cash for the nursery. It's at the bank that my car's battery dies. 

(jeaux) It becomes obvious what the issue is when josh tries to start the car. A call to AAA confirms it will take at least an hour to get help. We debate what to do for a moment and decide to explore White Center on foot while we wait. Seeing the neighborhood on foot changes our relationship with it as we walk. We notice a giant orange mural adorned with dark blue flowers on the side of josh’s favorite Salvadorean restaurant. We pass by a neighborhood bar covered in beige siding. After coming from Colorado in one of the driest winters it’s ever seen, I obsess over how lush and green everything is here. And finally, we stumble upon an auto store and decide to find out if they can jump the car.

Inside we’re met by a store manager who is full of life and energy. She talks us through all the different options for getting the car started. We see all the marvels that a modern auto store can contain! It’s striking how much the people here want to help us to get back on our journey. We share laughs over the misery of car troubles and learn about people we’ve never met in our life. In the end, we leave the store with a portable car jumper and the decision to go to Costco for our new battery.

Back on the road, I can’t help but joke about how I’ve always wanted to see what an auto store in Washington looked like. As we approach the sprawling tan structure that is a Costco warehouse, josh joins in asking if this Costco is different from the ones in Colorado. Shockingly, they are! We park and waltz in to get ourselves the new battery. With it procured, we open the hood and get started. As we work together to change the battery, I can’t help but notice how nice it is to be laughing over a stressful situation.

(josh) With a fresh battery installed, we resume our original journey. We leave the city and drive into the suburbs of Seattle. It takes three highways of different sizes and configurations to get there. We pause at traffic lights and sit in traffic that moves like a lazy river. But with all the morning's activity behind us, the drive is a kind of relief. Pulling into the nursery parking lot is like arriving at a cool oasis. We greet the owners and they invite us to tour their space. Atop every surface is a bonsai, whether decades old or a sapling just starting out. The low rumble of cars and trucks outside feels far away. We walk down every aisle of the greenhouse, admiring each tree in its small ornate pot. We ogle the massive trees in miniature marked 'not for sale.' Soon enough, we thank the owners and begin the return trip.

I remind myself of something I learned as a young traveler. A trip is more memorable when something small goes wrong. If we had taken the easy route, we would've had less to talk about. No time to fill. Less to laugh about and bond over. It wouldn't have been the same morning at all, would it?

friction is a choice

What do we lose when we glide through life? What's at the destination that's so worth rushing to? Choosing friction is an opportunity to customize the experiences we have. Instead of grumbling through friction, what if we enjoyed—or even savored—it? When we accept that it's a part of life, we can discern the frictions that add meaning or richness to it.

Most people don't have the luxury of embracing every friction. Convenience might be what gets the family fed before bedtime. A virtual option for a meeting might be the only way someone could attend. But opening our lives to some friction isn't about making those lives harder. Instead, it's a way of bringing intention into a day that might breeze by without it.