Vibe Coding and the Case for the Struggle

TIL: You can vibe-code your way into existential dread 🫠

As I've started transitioning back to the world of the working, I’ve been playing with some LLM-heavy viiibe coding. In this case, it meant coding with the help of AI to build out a little workshop generator. The end result is functional, kinda fun, and surprisingly useful for a lot of people that have checked it out. But more than anything, it left me with a question:

What happens to us when we automate the struggle?

With LLM assisted coding, its strange how you can wander along this bizarro continuum between getting a bit of help and, um, just pasting blocks of code until you've whipped up a black box that even the borg(in this case, ChatGPT) doesn't understand. But what really stood out to me is how it all feeeels.

When I'm in full-on copy-monkey mode, coding is surprisingly draining. Usually for me coding is a process of trying to complete small steps, running into walls, and then spending the majority of the time actively figuring out how to move forward. Instead, while working with a conversational AI, I end up spending short chunks of time writing questions and much larger chunks of time waiting for responses, trying out AI-proposed solutions, and hoping that the recommended solutions work. Often times, they don't. Coding with the help of AI can feel like I'm a slightly disappointed button pusher in a widget factory. It's all pretty boring and I definitely wouldn't say I'm riding along a Csikszentmihayli flow channel - there's just not enough resistance or engagement to feel like I'm actually doing anything.

If 2024 was the year of “dopamine,” 2025 feels like the year of “friction.” I’ve been thinking about what happens when we scrub every edge and burr off our work. Where does growth go when we smooth out the hard bits? What is hard work when the hard parts are hard because they're listlessly boring?

So I’ve been wondering:
How do we start bringing back just the right amount of friction - enough to stay engaged and keep growing - without getting too much in our own way?

Anyway, here’s the little workshop maker I hacked together:
👉🏽 Workshop Builder

LMK what you think.

And hey—if you're working with a messy problem and are trying to build something fun and useful (or usefully fun), hit me up. I’m open to new design work this year—especially where craft, systems, and human-first thinking intersect— and would love to work with people that would love to work with me.

👋🏽 🌊
-Saj