Friction

Friction is broadly defined as the resistance to relative motion between two bodies. As I hear the cars driving by, I know the tyres grip the road because there is a force that acts between the rubber and the tarmac that resists the tendency of the tyres to slide along instead of roll. The air around the car tries to stop the machine from moving forward, and even the car’s internal parts constantly hinder each other’s progress. As long as a body is moving in anything that is not a vacuum, it experiences some form of friction.

This is not about physics. This is about handling resistance. Every action I take will require effort and face some friction. And I do not need a physicist to tell me that the greater the load I’m trying to move, the greater the resistance I will have to overcome — this is common sense. It may be from the ground I’m on, the air around me or the parts within me but it is always there, resisting in ways big and small. I can apply more effort, streamline myself by smoothing out the rough edges to enable me to glide through more efficiently, or provide some buffer between me and the sources of friction because that is what lubricants do.

There’s no neat little conclusion to this analogy. There is but I am not ready to apply the effort necessary — internal friction is too high right now.