This is an evolving page for thoughts that I want to preserve before they are fully worked through. They may be incomplete, provisional, or revised without ceremony.
Friction Kills
August 9, 2025
In my experience, friction is the real killer of everything.
It is not the lack of experience, knowledge or even time. Yes, all of these are of course constraints that we have to deal with, but nothing kills as quick as friction.
When I refer to friction here, I do not imply that progress needs to be fast. It is completely fine—and expected—that we should be stuck with certain aspects for longer.
In fact, progress should be slow at times. Progress varies a lot throughout the lifetime of a project.
However, once progress already is slow, the time to regain momentum is critical.
Once you have realized that the progress ship has come to a halt, you usually have two choices.
- You can push through so that maybe our progress ship can pick up a bit of momentum.
- You simply put the progress ship in full astern: focus on another aspect or perspective, or try something completely different.
The real killer arises when the second choice is not feasible or even possible. There may be no alternative path to try, no other aspect to switch your focus to.
The only alternative is simply abandoning ship.
This is where pushing through also becomes dangerous: pushing might only cause more damage to our beloved progress ship.
You will try and try again, but no matter what you do, things only seem to get worse over time.
This, my dear sailor, is what I call the friction reefs.
This is where most projects come to die a slow and painful death.
Motivation and Absolute Goals
July 6, 2025
Most motivational media I have consumed so far in my life has been very simple, emotional and almost primal. This is useful for short bursts of motivation, but I have never been able to sustain this type of motivation over a longer period.
Usually, when someone has asked me what my goals are and what “drives” me, I have needed to pause and almost search for something to say.
I have realized that I do not have an absolute and grandiose goal—yet, perhaps.
This does not mean I do not get obsessed with or enjoy the work I do; quite the opposite. I have always managed to find beauty in the work I have done, although my initial filtering of work I could consider doing might be rough.
Rather, I have simply enjoyed getting the opportunity to work with the individuals and problems at hand.
I have friends, and have met various people, who do indeed have these absolute goals that they are trying to solve. I respect that immensely.
I remember seeing a similar discussion on Bluesky not long ago, but I need to dig it up.
My goal now will be to read more about this, and about the different forms motivation and goals can take.