The Problem
The last few months have been isolating for me. I was working hard on my book, which I turned in last week. It was exhausting, but I'm proud of what I've written. It also meant giving up a lot of social time. After writing for six or seven hours, I was often so drained that I skipped things I'd planned to do, because I just didn't have the energy.
But as I thought about how much I'd been staying home, I realized this wasn't new. Looking back over the last few years, I could see how easy it's become to stay home and avoid the friction of the outside world. The music I listen to, the movies I watch, the things I have delivered: they're all conveniences I appreciate, but they take me out of the experience of everyday life out in the world.
When I was growing up, I had to save my money to buy a record or a CD, so I was picky about what I bought. I'd talk to the people working in the store, friends, sibling, and ask them what they liked. Once I made my choice, I'd go home and listen to it all the way through, reading the liner notes and lyrics. "Oh wow, Stevie Wonder played harmonica on Sting's Brand New Day?" "I knew it! That's Bruce Hornsby playing piano on The End of the Innocence."
Sometimes an album took effort. Not every song grabbed me right away. Some took a few listens before I liked them, and some just weren't as good as the others. But listening all the way through, I got a sense of the full story the artist was trying to tell, why they put this song after that one. The album itself was a story.
We'd also swap albums with friends and siblings, partly to save money and partly to discover something new. We'd talk about the songs we liked and what we thought they meant. It was inconvenient compared to sending a link or sharing a playlist today. But that friction (the cost, the trip to the store, having to sit at home and play it) added something. Because we spent money we'd earned, the album we chose mattered more than all the ones we didn't buy. And sharing it took effort, so it became something we bonded over.
TV was the same. We had one TV, and shows aired when they aired. My siblings and I would argue about what to watch, then all sit on the couch together. Whether it was Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team, or a James Bond film, we laughed, cried, and talked about it afterward. That inconvenience brought us together.
This isn't me telling stories about the good old days. It's recognizing that convenience has a cost. Why sit on the couch together at the same time each week when everyone can go to their own room and watch whatever they want? Why invest in an album when the algorithm will queue up the next song and let you skip anything that takes effort to like?
I was reading an article in The Atlantic about how the convenience of modern life has made us lonelier, and there was a line in it I think the Stoics would agree with: "Inconvenience is the cost of community."
Kurt Vonnegut understood this. He didn't keep a box of envelopes at home. When he needed one, he'd walk to the store to buy it, and along the way he'd talk to his neighbors, see the scenery, and have, as he put it, one hell of a good time. That friction was the price of being part of his community.
Today we order food instead of going out to pick it up. We stream movies instead of watching them with strangers in a theater. We text instead of calling, even though research shows a phone call leaves us feeling far more connected. We've reduced friction so much that we can go days without interacting with another person beyond the bare minimum.
Even when we do go out, the store has become a place to get in, get what you need, and get out. We used to go to the mall not to buy anything, but just to hang out and run into people. Those random encounters, the conversations with strangers, the person you'll never meet who might have become your next best friend: that's what we're giving up.
I once did a thought experiment: what's the end result of perfect productivity and efficiency in our society? I came to the conclusion that it's each of us living in a little box where everything is delivered and streamed. Why face the friction and inconvenience of the world when you can be catered to and endlessly entertained? In a way, it's not much different from The Matrix.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we're there yet, but we're heading down a similar path. How often have you ordered something online that you could have bought at a store in your neighborhood? How often have you had food or groceries delivered instead of going out? How often has your family been in separate rooms, each watching their own shows, instead of sharing a movie or just having a conversation?
We prefer to stay in our little boxes and avoid that friction. The Stoics would have looked at that little box and said it's not just lonely. It's unnatural.
The Philosophy
Marcus Aurelius opens Book Two of the Meditations by reminding himself that we were born to work together, like hands and feet, like the upper and lower rows of teeth. And then he says something that I think hits hard today: to turn your back on someone is unnatural.
We don't think of convenience as turning our back on anyone. But every time we choose the app over the person, that's a small turn away.
Later, in Book Eight, Marcus has an image I find haunting. He asks if you've ever seen a severed hand or foot, cut off and lying apart from the body. That, he says, is what we do to ourselves when we cut ourselves off from others. But then he adds the hopeful part: unlike a severed hand, we can rejoin. We can reattach ourselves to the whole.
Now, to be fair, the Stoics also valued solitude. Seneca, in his seventh letter, tells his friend Lucilius to avoid crowds. So am I contradicting the Stoics here?
I don't think so, because in that same letter Seneca says to spend time with people who will make you better, and with people you can help become better. He isn't telling us to withdraw from people. He's telling us to be intentional about them. Solitude chosen for reflection is a practice. Isolation chosen because it's easier is avoidance.
And Seneca goes further. In his ninth letter, he says the wise person is self-sufficient, yet still wants friends. Not so there's someone to sit by his bed when he's sick, but so that he has someone whose sickbed he can sit beside.
Think about that. The point of friendship, for Seneca, is to be inconvenienced for someone. That's the cost of community, and the Stoics saw it as a privilege, not a burden.
The Stoic Hierocles pictured each of us at the center of a set of circles. First ourselves, then family, then friends, neighbors, fellow citizens, and finally all of humanity. He said our job is to draw those circles inward, to treat the people further out a little more like the people closest to us.
Convenience does the opposite. It pushes the circles outward. The person who makes our coffee, our neighbor, the guy at the record store — each become transactions instead of people. And eventually the only circle left is the one we're sitting in, alone, in our little box.
The Practice
So what do we do about it? I'm not going to tell you to cancel your streaming services and throw your phone in a river. The Stoics would call convenience an indifferent: neither good nor bad in itself. What matters is how we use it. The question isn't whether we use convenience; it's whether convenience is using us.
Seneca had a practice for exactly this. In his eighteenth letter, he tells Lucilius to set aside a few days now and then to live on the plainest food and roughest clothing, and then ask himself, "Is this what I was afraid of?" The point wasn't to suffer. It was to remind himself that he didn't need the comfort, so the comfort didn't own him.
I think we can do the same thing with convenience. Not by giving it all up, but by choosing friction on purpose. Here are a few ways to start.
1. Buy the envelope.
Pick one convenience a week and deliberately skip it. Walk to the store instead of ordering online. Pick up the takeout instead of having it delivered. Go to the coffee shop instead of brewing at home. And when you're there, talk to someone. The cashier, the barista, the person in line. That's Vonnegut's envelope. The errand isn't the point; the people you meet along the way are.
2. Ask a person first.
When I was growing up, if I wanted to learn about something, I'd go to the library. I'd ask my parents, my siblings, my friends what they knew. If I needed help with something I didn't have the skills for, I'd ask someone who did. If I was struggling with a personal problem, I'd talk to my siblings or friends.
Now we just get online. We ask AI. And every time we do, we skip a chance to connect with someone. So before you look it up, ask a person. Not because they'll always know more, but because asking for help is how relationships get built. It lets someone be useful to you, and that's a gift to them, too.
3. Call instead of text.
Text is convenient, but a voice carries far more than words. Next time you're about to send a message to a friend, call them instead. Better yet, ask to meet up.
4. Share something the slow way.
Pick an album and listen to it start to finish, then share it with someone and talk about it. Or get the family together and watch a movie at the same time, in the same room, with no phones. Let it be a little inconvenient. Argue about what to watch. That's part of it.
And here's the other side of it. Remember Seneca's friend at the sickbed. Community isn't just about letting yourself be inconvenienced. It's about being willing to be an inconvenience, too. To ask for the ride, the help, the favor. Most of us hate asking, because we don't want to be a burden. But when we refuse to ever be an inconvenience to anyone, we're also refusing to let anyone be close to us.
Conclusion
When Kurt Vonnegut walked to the store for a single envelope, he could have saved himself the trip by buying a whole box. It would have been more efficient. But he understood something we've forgotten: life doesn't happen in the efficient path. It happens in the detours. The neighbor you stop to chat with, the stranger in line, the friend you call instead of text.
The Stoics believed we were made for each other, like hands and feet, like the two rows of teeth. Every convenience that lets us skip another person is a small turn away from our nature. And every bit of friction we choose to accept is a chance to turn back.
So this week, go buy the envelope. Pick one convenience and skip it. Call someone. Ask for help. Let yourself be inconvenienced, and let yourself be an inconvenience to someone else.
Because inconvenience is the cost of community. And community is worth the price.
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