On Friction and Formation
- Shawn A. Stack
- Jun 4
- 5 min read
Notes on Being #02
You ever look at a baby’s feet?
Soft and round and delicate.
They’re round on the bottom too, you know.
When you think about it, it must be very painful for them to put all of their weight onto those soft, rounded soles and try to walk.
And while we all want to minimize the suffering of babies, no one would try to stop them from learning to walk because of the pain it is likely causing them.
Why?
Because we understand something simple:
Pain is part of the process of growth.
And it is also part of the process of watching someone grow.
As grownups, we like to think we are done with that kind of pain.
That we have already become who we are.
Sure, we say we want to keep growing as people—
but we do not want to change.
Because changing means we must once again experience the pain of becoming.
Most people live as though they have already reached their final form.
From that point on, life becomes a matter of refinement, adjustment, and maintenance.
Because at some point, most of us stop trying to personally grow, and instead begin working on our careers and growing our annual salaries.
We stop working to produce a newer version of ourselves, as we once did when we were younger and were working toward becoming older, and instead work to support the version we believe we have already become.
I’m a foodie — I go to new restaurants.
I like live music — I go to concerts.
I’m a sports fan — I support the team.
I’m a gamer…
I like to travel…
We build identities—
and then we maintain them.
Consumption becomes expression.
Consumption becomes entertainment.
And in this way, consumption becomes both identity and escape.
And there is nothing inherently wrong with this desire for entertainment.
As Friedrich Schiller remarked,
“Man is never so authentically himself as when at play.”
But here is the distinction we tend to overlook:
Play connotes action.
It requires energy, presence, and participation.
Yet our work has become so all-consuming that we no longer have the energy required for play.
And so what we call entertainment is not play—
it is not recovery—
it is reprieve from working.
A temporary suspension.
A quiet numbing of the mind before returning again to the work of maintaining the self we have constructed.
In order to have the energy to truly play, we need time away from work doing nothing.
And I am not speaking of sleeping.
I mean: doing nothing.
I mean: sitting long enough for boredom to begin its slow arrival.
The energy we lack is not physical—
it is psychic.
We are mentally exhausted.
And we deepen that exhaustion with the very things we use to escape it.
Modern entertainment gives us stimulation—
but rarely restoration.
Our psychic energy is replenished in boredom.
And when we are bored, we are moved toward play.
And when we play, we express something deeply human:
the endurance of creative becoming.
But boredom does not arrive immediately.
First comes contemplation—
and contemplation moves.
When we look to the past, contemplation becomes either
nostalgic
or
resentful.
When we look to the future, it becomes either
hopeful
or
anxious.
And when we are brought fully into the present, it becomes either
peaceful
or
boring.
And this is why we tend to keep ourselves busy.
To avoid the resentments of the past.
To escape the anxieties of the future.
And because we rarely allow ourselves to remain long enough in the present to encounter either its peace—or its boredom.
But when we suspend judgment of the past,
and loosen our grip on the future,
we arrive in the present.
And in that arrival, we encounter both:
peace—
and
boredom.
Here is where thought is freed from the immediate necessity of sustaining life.
Here is where creativity begins to stir.
Here is where purpose is not discovered—
but assumed through the quiet responsibility of what calls to us from within our boredom.
Here is where we find the energy to move again—
playing toward a future self we can once again imagine ourselves becoming.
But first, we must be driven half-mad by our boredom.
And we must resist the urge to assuage this approaching madness with distraction and entertainment.
We must lean into the boredom that threatens the very peace we are only able to recognize in the moment it begins to slip away.
Because it is only in the threat of war that we become conscious of peace.
As Friedrich Nietzsche observed,
“In times of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.”
And it is in this attacking of the self that one is re-formed—
through the will of creative overcoming.
And it is boredom which serves as the harbinger of this transformation.
Make no mistake:
the creative process of becoming is a war within the self.
Because the alternative to the creation of the self is not stability—
it is atrophy.
The higher aspect of the self is always moving forward,
driven by its capacity for self-authorship.
The lower remains—
contemplating what was
and what may be,
avoiding the present through narcotizing entertainment,
attempting to stave off the transforming power of boredom
by never fully confronting the self being presented to the world.
And many of us choose to side with the impulses of the lower self.
Why?
Because to see clearly who we are—
in contrast to who we believe ourselves to be—
invokes change.
And change disrupts comfort.
And discomfort is an irritation our culture teaches us to continually avoid.
But as Rumi asks:
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
For it is only through the friction of that polishing that we are able to reveal ourselves more clearly to ourselves.
And this is neither an easy nor comfortable task.
This is not to suggest that we should reject comfort.
But rather to reorder it.
Comfort is not the goal.
Overcoming the obstacle is.
Yes, as the Stoics remind us:
“The obstacle is the way.”
But we would do well to remember the counsel of the Taoists:
“The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way.”
Which is to say—
no articulation will spare you from the experience itself.
No philosophy will remove the friction.
No clarity will eliminate the need to step forward into what you are not yet ready to become.
And so we return—
not to an idea,
but to something much simpler:
soft feet,
pressing against hard ground.
The discomfort of weight.
The instability of movement.
The friction of becoming.
And the quiet understanding—
that this was never something to be avoided.
But something to be lived through.
Comments