Live In The Background
Put your hand out in front of you.
Look at it.
Focus on it.
Focus on it really hard.
You’ll notice the background starts getting softer and softer and softer. Until you don’t really notice anything except your hand.
Now put your hand down. You look ridiculous.
Life is kind of like this. You spend so much time focusing on what’s in front of you. Your job. Your schedule. Your kids’ schedules. Your Instagram feed. Sometimes, we forget about all the shit happening in the background of our worldviews. Which is a shame. Because when you bring the out-of-focus into focus, creativity and empathy thrive.
Let me prove it to you.
Here’s a story.
I was lying in bed next to my girlfriend. We were reading. I got up to go to the front room. Then, I returned.
Here’s the same story with background considered.
My girlfriend and I were sit-lying next to each other in bed on a Thursday night. It was before 9pm. We were reading the same book, but we had separate books. We started doing this as a sort of two-person book club initiative. I was skeptical at first, due to the already-impressive amount of books on my shelf, most unread. But once we ordered two, I understood. There’s something freeing about silently diving into words alone. And yet something comforting knowing the person sitting next to you is navigating through the same experience. It’s like being on a different planet together without having to worry about what part of the planet the other person is on. Or when they’ll get to your part of the planet. Or if they left the planet at work for the third night in a row.
After a chapter, I left the room to stretch my legs. My friends from home used to call me The Buffalo because I’m a wanderer. I would often leave the bar without telling anyone to wander to the next or to home or just to the other side of the bar and back. I think it’s one of the few reasons I haven’t gotten super fat.
I moseyed to our front room, stopping at the table where we dump our keys and chapstick and lately our mail. I looked at the stack of envelopes. Then, I wandered back to the room and re-assumed my reading position.
Okay.
Before you yell at me about the pointlessness of that story, I’ll say it. It’s pointless. That’s the point. The action (foreground) in the story is so bland, but the depth (background) lands. The additional insight about the reading situation. The backstory about wandering around. It allows you, the reader, to connect with me, the character. Even though what I’m doing isn’t all that telling—sitting around reading.
It's easy to see how this works for better storytelling.
But this applies to not writers, too. Think about any recent interaction. Maybe it was with a friend. Or a bank clerk. Or an Uber driver. Did you focus on the person in front of you? Or did you consider the person's hour or day or year prior to being in front of you?
When you start considering background, what’s out of focus, you start getting curious. And curiosity leads to whole lot of good stuff. Like connection and creative thinking.
Funny people are the best at this. Funny people look at something everyone else is looking at and commentate on the thing no one else notices.
Think about a group text thread.
Someone sends a selfie from a football stadium to the group. People respond.
Looking good.
Wish I was there.
Etc.
Then, the funny friend replies, commenting on someone’s ill-fitting sweater 20 rows back.
Focusing on the background will make you more creative, more likable, and funnier. What it won't help you with is endings.