A short treatise on philosophical friction

  In physics friction can be a real bitch. It lies at the core of inaccuracy in nearly all mechanical calculations, however we accept it as part of nature, and we would definitely never make the choice to live without it as Ms. Frizzle so elegantly demonstrated. I would make the same contention about the day to day life of humans. An interesting way of looking at mechanical friction is thinking about it as the difference between what was supposed to happen and what did happen, e.g. if you push a box with certain amount of force yet it moves as if a different level of force was applied that difference can be labeled as friction. The definition I will be using for "human" friction is closer to that than might be expected. Whatever the change is between what you hoped would happen and what did happen I would refer to as friction, in other words:the "shit happens" variable. My main contention is that much like a game of baseball would be fundamentally wrong without mechanical friction in play I think a life lived without friction wouldn't be fulfilling at all. The most obvious argument for this would entail the idea that without problems we would have no problem solving skills, no tools, no invention, and thus no reason to ever leave the stone age. However blunt or simple that argument may be it fails to elaborate on the positive role agony and disappointment play within the human condition. If we were never sad how could we ever be happy? We would never again have the awesome feeling of finally being warm after being cold for what seemed like years. If a single dimension of emotion is represented by a -10->10 scale centered on zero the single best feeling possible is going from a -10 to 10, if there were no negative numbers you could only ever feel half that good.

  One of the more enlightened things a person can do is learn to find the positive stuff within everything, it is an introspective task that often takes a lifetime to learn but it is critically important to living an enjoyable life. Without negative stuff happening this skill would never need to exist which would be a critical blow to the development of the human psyche. Finally reaching the stage where hitting every red light on the way home means more time enjoying the night breeze or getting to hear a few more songs on the radio instead of getting frustrated is a wonderful feeling. Its the equivalent of no longer needing to listen to specific albums because you love every song that comes up on shuffle. Being able to be happy with random stuff that happens to you is way better than living a life that follows a perfect script, or at the very least more interesting.

  I guess what I'm getting at is that I've been trying over the past couple of years to leave as much friction as I can in my life. It makes me work harder at maintaining a positive attitude and it also makes it so I always feel like I'm alive. I don't avoid hard classes or tough shifts at work because with all of that going on when I finally do get to relax and don't run into friction it feels that much better. Much like a box on ice...if boxes could feel.