[Mini Essay] If It Feels Interesting, It's Material
Collecting observations and trusting your brain to do the rest.
Talking about his creative process in an interview, Jerry Seinfeld walked through how his whispering joke came to life.
He had an interesting observation about golf announcers whispering at the end of a putt, but didn’t know what to do with it yet.
Suddenly, he remembered something. “Four years ago, I’d made a similar observation in my notebook about how people whisper when they are talking about tipping, like it’s a drug deal.”
Then he started pulling on that thread. Where else do people whisper when they don’t need to?
When mentioning someone might have cancer. When directing someone to the black person in charge. When talking about someone’s attractiveness.
And that’s how he created this bit. You can watch it here.
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Seinfeld didn’t know what that tipping observation was for when he wrote it down. He just knew it was interesting.
Perhaps that’s a writing habit worth cultivating. Collecting observations quietly, without agenda, and being patient enough to let their purpose reveal itself.
Not every observation becomes a joke. Or an essay. Or a movie idea. But you can’t know which ones will until you’ve kept them long enough to find out.
Just write them down. Trust your brain to make the connection later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe four years from now.
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P.S. Here are some photos from our recent trip to Skardu. Travelled with some of the most amazing people.
