friction

over the course of time, it becomes noticeable where energy is wasted. this post aims to illustrate how effort and willpower don’t equate to output - even how hopes and efforts towards rigid goals can be suboptimal, showing us how things shouldn’t be done. in physics, there is the law of inertia; force/friction needed to overcome a threshold - like a ball on a flat mountain top that just needs a small steer to get rolling. opposed to that idea, the ball could be at the lowest point within the terrain; moving it becomes a constant battle against gravity. the message is: don’t be the guy who mistakes the effort of exhausting his energy, rolling a ball that is destined to go back where it was, for the initial friction that makes it roll on its own. the energy that should be spent is on orientation; knowing one’s own location on the terrain and potential-energy that can be released, having higher effect that the effort of activating it invested.

stasis and patience

depending on subjective choice of lifestyle, humans perceive time as either endless or slippy. leaning towards the subjective endless spectrum is beneficial to give environments time to rearrange and wait for opportunities. endlessness is mostly stopped by egotistical factors; not seeing humanity as eternal unity of genetic progression but as isolated experiences. being patient means being willing to let time pass, sacrificing it as a natural expenditure.

this plays into the concept of friction because orientation requires inaction regarding expenditure of pushing force. brains can be naturally conditioned to link effort to results, which causes an habitual feeling of wrongness, seeing friction as a red-herring to be chased, not as a signal to be avoided. this post should’nt be mistaken for the message “avoid all friction”, it should communicate “invest friction purposefully.” the purpose arises from observation, engagement, and the reasoning around optimal efficiency.

non-zero

book suggestion: “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (1999)” by robert wright. one of my favorite books.

increasing complexity of architectures and structural organisms rewards cooperation. zero-sum environments are only possible through artificial and synthetic constraints; rules, boundaries, overlapping objectives. much like zero itself is a state that rarely exists anywhere in our measurable environment. a zero-sum environment must fulfill multiple conditions at once: - all its actors must be operationally constrained, only allowing a minimal set of actions. - all actors must compete for a limited resource within the same timeframe. - intercommunication must be strictly prevented. - and the list goes on … while humans were able to create these environments, almost all of them failed to meet and maintain all criteria for an extended period. it requires active effort to keep something artificial alive.

do not be deceived into thinking that zero-sum is how the world works: there is a famous example where male wolfs were held captive, building a hierarchy where the famous alpha-wolf came out on top. this made humans assume that wolf packs naturally create an hierarchy like this. they were wrong. natural wolf packs worked more like families with different roles and natural conditioning within. roles were defined by being available, establishing a natural distribution. another hypothetical example: if 5 humans were locked in with nothing to eat, eventually, they would cannibalize each other; is this because humans are naturally cannibals? - most cruel world-views depend on such preconditions to underline their conclusions.

every seeming zero-sum domain is a fence with a guard whose salary is the only thing keeping scarcity real. competition is therefore not a deep structure but a stage built over cooperation’s foundation. let’s view existing non-zero-seeming systems with different eyes: financial markets[both sides don’t have to loose when they play their roles right. a counterparty can only loose the delta that the other gains by having the same entry and exit timing and price. this is defined as overlapping interest for scarce value. the zero-sum nature dissolves when one party supplies quick liquidity, while the other uses it to make a long-term investment. the investor is happy that he got filled; the quantitative market maker is happy that his liquidity strategy payed off. while thats an idealistic caricature, it shows how non-overlapping role distributions can play their part, all profiting from it.] professional sports[one side wins, one looses. purposefully designed to be that way, so we won’t deny it. but all the engagement around it accumulates: skill, investor money, and emotional support from fans. all scalable. opposition isn’t the enemy, it’s the central component that keeps this wheel running.]

effort

actively sensing friction allows us to understand the natural flow of reality. being too slow in a flow of high velocity creates friction as well. it wouldn’t feel ‘smooth’ to be a rigid part in a flowing system. a toxic extent of stasis and patience within a system of naturally high velocity would feel like friction as well. this translates directly into adaptation. different ocean-creatures naturally move in different speeds according to their size, water-flows, depth-pressure, and temperature. they have that speed because doing more wouldn’t change much, operating at their optimum of energy expenditure vs desired effect of movement.

humans are much like this as well. pushing rigidly into forcing a bicycle 30% above its optimal speed gets a 30% speed boost at 60% higher expenditure. this gap may be justified by ‘being late’ stress, but actually only results in a few minutes of difference in arrival time. pushing beyond an optimal limit transacts a slight differential in performance for a disproportionate loss of energy. the friction of water rules its optimal speed. the friction of neurons, passing a signal, limits the speed of our brains. the friction of matter between 2 locations limits the speed by witch we can operate across a distance. knowing these limitations allows us to expend our individual energy at the pareto-curve of return.