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# Loads of External Friction
- URL: https://sooul-naked.ghost.io/loads-of-external-friction/
- Published: 2026-09-09T11:42:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-09T11:42:44.000Z
- Author: Madia Journal

*After ten hours on a bus, Max and LuLu try to name the difference between necessary external difficulty and the inner choices that shape relational conflict. One wants to trace the dominoes; the other needs food, sleep, and a stopping point.*

[Audio Version ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xC96dPsUfrqm2naYDq3GkJ%5FIfwvpJoGK/view?usp=drivesdk&ref=sooul-naked.ghost.io)

**Cutting a New Path**

**Max:** Okay, we’re live.

**LuLu:** Can you hear me from here?

I mean, probably you shouldn’t be able to. There’s no sound in the room.

I’m saying, in this topic that we’ve been discussing today: when you’re pursuing a new goal—when you’re trying to become a thing that no one else has become yet—it requires a ton of outside friction.

Instead of walking down a path that’s been paved many times, you’re chopping through a jungle with a machete. That’s friction.

You’re moving through constant challenge and pushback because you’re creating a new way of being.

But what I feel is that relational conflict is still actually inner conflict. I feel that relational conflict is the bullshit.

It shows us where we’re out of integrity. It shows us that we didn’t follow our intuition somewhere; that we were in ignorance, or that we weren’t truthful somewhere, or that we said we were oriented towards something but then we did the other thing.

For me today, it was like: I said I was going to pee in the grass, and then twice I didn’t. I could have, but I was too worried about somebody seeing me.

But who the fuck cares if somebody sees me? *What the fuck?*

Why would that stop me from doing something that I feel passionately about, that I know there is a direct gain in doing? And I’m choosing the lesser thing.

It’s still moving gradually towards the nature thing. It’s not like I’m saying, *“Oh, let’s fucking live out in a yurt in the middle of the jungle in Sri Lanka right away and hunt our own meat and fish and forage for berries and shit.”*

But it’s the little things that I’ve chosen to do today—I didn’t do.

My commitments to syncing with nature in the way that I can today, I didn’t follow through with. It was this society drafting: *“Oh no, what if somebody sees me?”*

So those are two things that I feel were out of integrity somehow. And there are a couple other things.

**The Tin Can Context**

**Max:** I think it’s important for anyone who’s reading this to be aware: we spent ten hours on a bus today.

Devastating to the human body, to the human psyche—in a tin can, insulated and rubbered away from nature. Of course we’re going to have internal friction.

We are not perfectly in line—or whatever the fuck that even is. We’re not perfect. This is part of it.

We woke up early. We’re going to bed late. Sure, you not peeing a couple times, I imagine—I don’t think beating yourself up about that is really that big of a solution.

**LuLu:** I’m not beating myself up about it. I’m just sharing with you.

**Max**: I think we need to contextualise these things where you’re like, *“These are internal friction.”* Yeah, but the external friction hasn’t gone away.

In fact, Rome was probably easier than a ten-hour bus ride.

The difficulty level of sitting in a tin can surrounded by a bunch of people all day—not being able to move, not being able to exercise, not being able to eat, not having access to the things we want to do—the designed Earth is really hard.

It’s really tough. **Loads of external friction today.**

Tomorrow, if we fuck off, that’s different. When we have access to fresh fruit and a kitchen and a bathroom, we get good sleep tonight, we get to walk around and exercise—if we get fucked tomorrow, that’s different.

Today, I think it’s a pass. It’s a fine pass.

Especially for me as a traveller. I do not travel well. A ten-hour bus ride is absolute endgame. If I score a one out of ten on that, I’m fine.

**Reading the Dominoes**

**LuLu:** I just feel like if everything is our creation, then we have to read it in that way.

And if everything is our creation, we have to see what choices we made and how they affected the dominoes.

That’s what I’m seeing right now. I’m here thinking about the choices that I made today, and I’m wondering what that is for you.

You said that we were sitting in a tin can, but you didn’t tell me where you felt like you were out of integrity.

**Max:** Because this is so hard for me. I don’t give a fuck what went wrong. The fact is, we arrived. We almost missed our bus.

**LuLu:** Yeah, but the first thing that we did when we got in here was like, *“We need to talk and figure out what happened today.”*

**Max:** What we did was you unpacked and we started cooking. I showered.

**LuLu:** I don’t know why you’re being this way, because that’s exactly the first thing that happened when we got in here. We unpacked, started cooking, and I showered.

**Max:** Okay. That’s the first thing that happened.

**LuLu:** Right, but you were very clear that you wanted to understand better something that happened today—how things unfolded in the way that they did, and why the conflict between us happened in the way that it did.

That conflict was exactly the same as the conflict that we had two days ago, when we weren’t in a tin can.

This is my thing: I like to figure things out. I like to see where I was out of integrity. I’m not yelling at you.

I like to understand where I was out of integrity so that the dominoes can be affected differently next time.

Because if I just say, *“Oh, we arrived here and let’s move on,”* then—

**Max:** I didn’t say that.

**LuLu:** This isn’t me beating myself up in any way. This is like, *“Oh, this is interesting. I can see how the unfoldment of events that happened could be maybe related to these things in some way.”*

And if I’m acknowledging myself as a creator, then I want to see how the brushstrokes that I made—with which colours—affected the painting that I’m making.

**Max:** Because you were talking—you were actually circling right now.

**LuLu:** Can you ask me that any time you answer?

**What Max Carried Through the Day**

**Max:** Today I woke up on time. Last night I ate food more than what I probably should have.

I had absolutely shit sleep last night. **Absolutely fucking horrible sleep.**

I don’t know if I got four hours again last night. I’d be super impressed. So I got roughly four hours of sleep.

I then made it on time, barely, to a bus. Then my food was stripped away from me that I’d need for the day.

I got on the bus. We created tons of journals, tons of content—more than a full day’s worth. Absolutely. Just that alone has made the whole day worthwhile.

I moved and did multiple exercises multiple times, drank a bunch of water, ate as much fruit as I could, sat on the bus.

To me, I feel like I did really well today. That’s what I feel.

Could it have gone better in different ways? Absolutely.

I wish I would have maybe thought that I should get the food from underneath. I mentioned it several times and we didn’t do it at the team check-ins. We as a team didn’t do it. We said, *“No, we’re fine,”* multiple times.

I tried the door myself. I said, *“Fuck this.”* I tried the door two or three times myself on separate occasions, trying to get at the food because I knew I needed it—like a dog pawing at their fucking food container.

And so here I am. I came back. We made food, packed up, I set up the fucking ride exactly as I needed to for Sunday.

I think today was a success. Unfortunately, there was a big challenge in the middle of it.

I wanted to know why that is, and it doesn’t seem like we’re able to figure that out now. It’s ten o’clock at night. Again, I got maybe four hours of sleep. I passed out for about twenty minutes today.

I’m exhausted.

If we’re not able to figure it out, fine. If you have a bad attitude, I’m fucking exhausted. Then we have to call it that, and tomorrow is a new day.

I can’t figure it all out in a day.

If you want to go on a walk tonight and stay up until one o’clock in the morning, write your friends and try to organise it all—fine. I’m fine with that. That’s the decision that you want to make.

I’m going to get up after I get hopefully at least eight hours of sleep. I’m probably going to make myself breakfast, move around, exercise, and prepare for the day.

If you want to sleep in the middle of that, that’s fine.

**Compassion Before Analysis**

**LuLu:** I don’t know what that has—

**Max:** What?

**LuLu:** All I heard was, *“I was not out of integrity at all. Maybe everything’s right. Just fuck with me.”*

**Max:** Dude, I will fuck with you as much as I want to right now. You are just sitting here and attacking me.

I am exhausted. Do you have any compassion for that?

**LuLu:** Do you have any compassion for me?

Do you hear how the start of that conversation was me trying to see where I was out of integrity today? Then you pass it to me and say, *“Why don’t you tell me?”*

**Max:** I just told you my side of it right now, okay? And I want to go to sleep. I’m tired. It’s fucking 10:15.

**LuLu:** We have been sleeping good for days.

**Max:** Why don’t you have a little fucking self-compassion for the feminine, which is your body? You take care of it, you feed it, and you rest it.

And then when it’s fed and rested and exercised, then ask it questions.

It is just now, and that’s what came up.

**LuLu:** Did you feed and rest?

**Max:** Yes. It really came up.

Okay, good. Well, I’m checked out tonight. I’m done.

I would like to go to bed. I’m exhausted—*really painfully exhausted.* I just want to eat my food and go to sleep.

**LuLu:** I just feel like this absolutely ensures that we will have the same conflict again in the next forty-eight hours.

**Max:** **Stay tuned.**