Long before I began extolling the transformative power of psychedelics, I was learning how to navigate change through intuition and attunement—how to recognize when something wasn’t working, when I felt stagnant, and when it was time to pivot. That skill—of tuning in and shifting course—is something I’ve spent most of my life refining.

Convenience has made life easier in so many ways. But as tech companies rush to eliminate every minor frustration from our lives, what are these frictionless solutions really costing us? To me, the small inefficiencies we're so eager to optimize away are actually the texture of life itself—the rough edges that keep us connected to our environment and to each other.

It’s 6:15 a.m., and I’m frustratingly wide awake before my alarm with a thought rattling around in my head—a trend I’ve been noticing lately—that people, myself included sometimes, have grown to expect the world to cater to all of our sensitivities, as if everyone around us should adjust their behavior to suit our comfort or our needs...