A Fresh Look at Everything

Here's a creative trick: Look at things as if you've never seen them before

This is part of my “Art of Noticing” series, in which I learn, find, or discover the things around me that usually go unnoticed and turn them into an endless source of creative inspiration.

NOTE: The last of these “Noticings” blog posts will run on April 13th. I’m going to keep recording the 9-minute daily podcast on which these posts are based, though, so if you want to keep your dose of daily Noticings, be sure to subscribe to the Art of Noticing podcast here on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

(You could also listen here on Substack, but that’s a miserable way to listen to a podcast so I don’t recommend it. Do yourself a favor and use a podcast app so you can listen on your commute or at the gym or something.)

I wrote once about how it keeps dawning on me and my kids (but not my wife for some reason) that it’s really strange that we have a “wild animal” (or dog Abby) living in our house. We take it for granted, but it’s weird.

Same for feet. I looked down the other day and for some reason thought, “Oh man are feet strange.”

Now, there’s nothing weird about my own feet. They’re just feet, but feet are fucking weird, man. It’s amazing that they work as well as they do, but they’re still so odd.

It really got me thinking about how much we end up taking for granted … and as creators, it made me wonder what we’d see if we unplugged from all we accept without thinking too much about it.

Here's how this "noticing" can benefit my stories and art:

Defamiliarize the Mundane

Our brains tune out the mundane. But by looking at ordinary things in new, strange ways, we can make the world a tiny bit more magical than it usually seems … which is good, because life is pretty amazing!

Here’s a fun creative exercise: Pretend you're an alien discovering human feet for the first time. Describe them with defamiliarized eyes: wrinkled flesh, odd proportions, stubby toes. Practice looking at the boring parts of your world with renewed wonder to unearth exotic aspects you overlooked.

Fun side note: A friend told me about an entrepreneur type they knew who takes LSD a few times a year specifically because he said it forces him to see the world with new eyes, like kids see the world. I’m not telling you to take LSD, but hey, it’s the same concept.

Overturn Stereotypes

This weird discourse on feet tells me that even the most banal things are probably more interesting than our jaded perception usually lets us see. You’re a creator, though, so challenge your assumptions by seeing things fresh, and focusing on the weird within the routine or what’s new even inside cliches.

Twist tropes and stereotypes in unexpected ways. Zoom in on the "boring" background characters. Add fucked-up details that subvert expectations. Who knows what will happen?

Newness in the world comes from overturning what we take for granted. If we want a more magical world, all we need to do is to remove the things we assume we’ve already decided … like “feet are normal things.”

Want to learn on the go?
Reading these posts is only one way to get these lessons. Every post here has a companion episode of my 10-minute, multi-times-weekly podcast, The Art of Noticing.

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