Today I’m writing to you from South Korea. To be frank, I was waffling on my decision of whether or not to come for quite some time. Being connected to my sense of Koreanness makes up a large part of my identity and I’ve been fortunate enough to return to Korea every few years to soak up the ineffable comfort that comes from having my feet on this ground. These touchpoints help me feel as sense of rootedness even as a member of the Korean diaspora.

I implement “intentional friction” into my life in order to not not get swept up by convenience and optimization.

I do this as a way to practice one of my core values, freedom (I’ll talk more about my core values and their purpose in future posts). This may seem counterintuitive, so I’ll provide some examples and explanations below.

I recently visited my parents and found that a clowder of cats had moved into the neighborhood. I am a recent cat convert, so was eager to mingle with them. The direct approach with cats had not proven fruitful for me in the past. So I decided to engage an indirect approach.

One of my coping mechanisms is information-gathering. In the face of uncertainty, I try to gather copious amounts of information to try and soothe my anxieties. However, in an age of overwhelming amounts of information, I’ve realized information doesn’t guarantee knowledge. Much of it is noise.

I went on a backcountry backpacking trip in Alaska and one of our guides taught us that in the backcountry, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”