Sand forms when rocks break down from weathering and eroding over thousands and even millions of years.

—NOAA National Ocean Service

I can’t find my favorite quote.

I thought it was in M. Scott Peck’s A Road Less Traveled. It was about the essential friction in all human relationships. Human beings have different needs and wants. And in living among other people friction and conflict are inevitable.

But I can’t find it.

He–I think it was him–drew a comparison between that process of human beings bouncing against people in the course of their relationships and the process of rocks at the seaside. The rocks have the friction of wind and ocean applied to them and in time they are made more smooth and beautiful.

Maybe it’s from another author.

It’s a lovely sentiment. It’s akin to the aphorism “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

It implies that the stressful forces which are applied to us in the course of our lives is somehow purposeful. That there’s a beauty that is the result of friction.

I think there’s truth in this. It feels positively true.

But I also think that the stresses that apply to us can crush us. They grind us down. They can pulverize our essences to sand.

That’s a less positive idea. But it also feels true.

Thankfully, we are not inert, as rocks are.

We can react.

We can put up boundaries.

We can move ourselves out of the way.

And more, we can heal and grow.

We are not rocks.

In about year 2002 I read about someone describing the conflict between design and programmers as “ponytails vs. beards.”

That’s undoubtedly reductive and probably sexist. It implies designers as effete and feminine and programmers as manly and burly.

I was both in the 90s when I started making websites.

I’ve been hired at places where design and engineering fought each other.

You see, I could write code, and I could talk about rhythm and contrast and understood the language of designers.

I understood mood boards and the unit tests.

I could talk CMYK and static analysis.

Their friction was my paycheck.

I never thought of those places as engines. If I did, I might think of those staff people as metal parts of the engine. I was hired to be the motor oil, I guess.

“Oil can” says The Tin Woodsman in The Wizard of Oz.

His mouth so rusted that he can’t overcome the friction to ask for help.

Only the application of oil can loosen his joints and let him move.

The Woodsman is neither rock nor person.

Does he grow like a person?

Is he rough like a rock?

He’s an imperfect analog for us.

I’ve been married twice.

Marriage entails friction.

Kids growing up? Friction galore.

I had stepkids. Friction.

I’m not married now. But I live with someone. Friction.

I set my boundaries. I respect the boundaries of others.

When those things fail, I attempt to learn from them.

I do what I need to to make sure that I can speak.

I know I need an Oil Can sometimes.

I ask for help.

f = μ _k N

f ≤ μ _s N

I can almost read those, still, from my notes. It’s something like “If you push horizontally with a small force, static friction establishes an equal and opposite force that keeps the book at rest. If you push with a greater force, you get a result.”

Physics is amazing. It’s metaphorical.

Like friction, which is a real thing, but also a powerful metaphor.

Thanks for reading my meandering post for the January 2025 IndieWeb Carnival, whose prompt is On The Importance of Friction.