When Friction is a Good Thing

There’s no doubt that the digital world is becoming a more frictionless place every day. Or at least, it seems to be trying. There’s not a single manual action i can think of that doesn’t have some tech company trying to automate it into the oblivion of always-on convenience.

I’ve always loved this old Kurt Vonnegut quote about going to get an envelope when he could save himself the trouble by just buying a bunch of them.

“Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.”

― Kurt Vonnegut

It’s so freaking true. I spend as much time as life will allow just farting around. It’s not a new fear or new idea that we’ll automate the fun complexities of life away. But it is becoming too real for my taste.

The world is obsessed with shortcuts and “hacks” (I hate hacks more than possibly anything on the internet) that get you to your destination immediately. But if you could teleport to the top of a beautiful mountain, I can guarantee you wouldn’t burn many calories, take many pictures, hear many birds, or do anything fun or interesting along the way. Mountains you could teleport to with no effort would become ho-hum and boring, and who the hell knows what you might try to replace them with. But mountains that you actually have to work to climb? Those are the ones that fascinate us endlessly.

I took the cable car up to the top of a mountain to get this view in Japan. It was pretty worth it, but imagine if I’d walked? Well, first off it would have been dark. OK bad example but you know what I’m saying. The cable car was at least more friction than teleportation

Self-improvement and lifelong learning are my mountains. I don’t want to teleport to the end of these journeys like Neo from the Matrix because then those goals would kind of just… go away. It’s hard enough to find purpose in the world once; I couldn’t imagine if I had to start all over again because my goal became automatable and easy.

Friction is the only way you can learn stuff. Dura is built to give you shortcuts where they are non-essential, but to strategically keep friction as part of the reading, note taking, and writing process where we don’t think it should be replaced.

We’re not trying to make life harder, but we definitely aren’t trying to make it too easy. The parts of life where struggling for just a little while lead to worthwhile results are the parts we want to preserve.

If learning is something you want to protect from being glossed over by a layer of AI-powered grease like the rest of our digital world, I hope you’ll give Dura a try.

Cheers,

Dave