Living Life in a Padded Room

Somewhere along the way, we decided that society's goal was to build a padded room. We’re in a cultural moment obsessed with removing all discomfort. Nobody’s allowed to be offended. Nobody’s allowed to lose. Nobody’s allowed to fail.

​We’ve sanded off every rough edge of life. We’ve built a world without friction. But a world without friction isn't kind. It’s just weak. It wraps everyone in emotional bubble wrap and calls it compassion. Then we wonder why people panic the second life pushes back.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: friction is reality’s feedback mechanism. It keeps absurdity in check.

I’m not talking about cruelty. Cruelty is personal, sharpened, and intentional. Friction is something else. Friction is losing a game. It’s being told “no” by someone who isn’t your parent. It’s failing a test you didn’t study for. It’s the visceral, humbling lesson that the world doesn’t revolve around your feelings.

The problem with our frictionless world is that we’ve raised people who never learned how to deal with it. They collapse under the slightest pressure. They confuse discomfort with trauma.

Friction teaches you how to take a social or emotional punch. It forces you to develop a backbone, a sense of humor, or at least a strategy. You learn to adapt. You learn that not everyone will like you, and that liking yourself is your job, not theirs.

We haven't just removed personal adversity; we've tried to remove all social judgment. There used to be a quiet social feedback loop, call it shame, or just common sense. Friction told you, “No, you don’t wear pajamas to the grocery store.” It wasn’t cruelty. It was a shared understanding that standards exist.

​A world without friction sounds kind, but it isn't. It’s a world where no one ever learns to take a punch, where everyone walks around convinced they’re invincible until reality eventually, and inevitably, knocks them flat.

We don't need cruelty. We just need to stop pretending that resistance never helped.