Zero Friction

I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “Okay, I’ll send you the pages.

Then I go down the steps and my wife calls, “Where are you going?” “Well,” I say, “I’m going to buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in the closet.” And I say, “Hush.”

So I go to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately.

I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it.

Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home.

And I’ve had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Kurt Vonnegut

I understand there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy.

- Anthony Bourdain

Every morning is roughly the same. I start the day with a powdered green thing I get from a subscription service that is supposed to ensure I get my daily vitamins and my gut biome stays in order. I shower, put on sunscreen, drink a protein shake I order in packs of 30, take the meds that keep me normal, and I do a little morning ritual: journal, 5-minute meditation, lift weights for a couple of sets. The idea is that keeping the habits small and achievable will ensure I maintain them, and that I can always do more if I feel like it. Mostly the first part is true and the second part never happens. Once I have gotten through this morning ritual, depending on the day, I either commute about an hour to work or move to my desk in the apartment. If I'm on the train, I'll read something on my e-reader, headphones in, trying to ignore the press of humanity all around me.

If I go into the office that day I'll go to Whole Foods and get lunch. This is usually the biggest adventure I have in a given workday: deciding whether to get a turkey chorizo breakfast burrito or a Thai chicken peanut wrap. If I'm at home I'll snack on whatever we have in the fridge: we're in a CSA that delivers to our house so we at least have fresh vegetables. I always tell myself I should start packing lunches but only ever do so by accident when we have leftovers. I head home and try and get a chore or two done - if I'm feeling particularly energetic, sometimes I'll stop at the grocery store, otherwise I do the dishes or take out the trash. A couple days a week I play pickleball after work, otherwise I usually just zone out and play videogames. K and I try to eat dinner together but our schedules often don't align.

(I suppose to be clear I am fairly social as these things go - I have a lot of friends and I usually see them at least twice a week, something I take pride in - but today I am writing about a "normal" day. Just wanted to make it clear that I am, at the very least, not a shut-in before I talk more about the ways I am a lot like a shut-in.)

I can and often do go a whole day without exchanging more than hellos and goodbyes. The throughline of everything in life I do to sustain myself is that it is delivered directly to me, usually with zero human contact necessary.

I read Atomic Habits recently. There are some useful tips in there, but there's something very insidious about the mindset of optimizing your life that has always troubled me. Friction gives life color and texture and meaning. The project of modern technology - everything mediated by a screen, a button press away, everything faster and better and easier and right now - erases so much of that friction that it's easy for a day to pass unnoticed, a colorless blur before my eyes.

I do not know how much of this is the tech and how much of it is me. Presumably if I were more like James Clear and his ilk I would feel differently - if I had a business or a hustle or a professional goal I were optimizing for I might find myself enormously grateful for the minutes and hours saved by the little computer in my pocket. Unfortunately for the most part I am just optimizing against something. There is a version of me that will not take care of himself given the slightest amount of friction involved in doing so and the big project of my life right now is to ensure that he is not allowed into the driver's seat.

I think a lot about the Vonnegut quote about farting around these days. My daily life at the moment is devoid of a lot of the little frictions that might give it more meaning, and that makes me sad. At the same time, every day I get up and get out of bed and write and work and go through the little simulacra of being a functioning human being that I have set up for myself is a victory. Where does that leave you?

I do not, on the whole, think it is a good thing that I can live my life this way. I wonder if, in a world where all these frictionless choices are taken away, I might find myself forced to be in the world in a way that makes me feel more alive. But as it stands I know I'm picking the lesser of two evils when the same tech that delivers my nutrient slop could allow me to lay in bed and eat pizza all day. It might be a matter of degrees but surely this is better.

I suppose I am in some sense optimizing for becoming something. I am trying to make little improvements, one day at a time, in the hopes that one day the compounding interest on those improvements will hit and I will suddenly be living the rich and full life I have always wanted. And maybe on that day I will cancel the subscriptions and the deliveries and go on a nice long walk to pick up some envelopes.