Much of the modern life spawned from the desire to eradicate frictions from our daily lives. Nowadays, one can live a full life without ever leaving their doorstep: work a remote job, order takeaways for every meal, entertain themselves with collections of media incomprehensibly vast yet conveniently accessible, and chat with anyone in the world in real time.

Take this further: an autonomous machine that reads one’s mind and body state and delivers the optimal content. If the person is hungry, it orders the food they are craving from their favorite spot and feeds them. If the person is bored, suggest entertainment options that can maximally eliminate the boredom.

This is a life without friction. There is no action required for the person in order to survive. All they need to do is remain still, and the machine will keep them alive. Yet, it is grotesque and frightening, because it is meaningless.

I like to frame my life as a story book. Every human is born with an empty book, and my purpose is to fill mine with engaging and meaningful stories. Without knowledge and inspirations, nothing can be written. Indeed, one is born without them, and frictions are there to fill the gap.

This is why frictions create purpose. There is no innate purpose in life, and no one is born with one. Purpose cannot be defined without actions. Frictions encourage actions. Actions create knowledge and inspirations, and ultimately inspires purpose. One does not look for purpose. One acts, and the rest follows.

Picking up a new hobby, learning new things, going on walks, working on projects, cooking, they are all examples of frictions that a lot of us do without thinking much of it. Maximize friction: find more things to do, more knowledge to learn, more recipes to try; you will never run out of source materials for your book.