The Art of Grit

(5 Minutes)

A little mental exercise in finding meaning where you least expect it

You know that moment when you’re listening to your favorite song and suddenly realize the best part isn’t the guitar solo or the soaring vocals—it’s that tiny pause right before the chorus kicks in? That split second of silence that makes your heart skip? That’s what we’re talking about today.

John Baldessari, the artist who liked to put colored dots over people’s faces (yes, really), once said something that’s been bouncing around my head like a ping pong ball: “Instead of looking at things, look in between things.” At first, I thought this was just art school nonsense. But then I started paying attention, and now I can’t unsee it.

The Comma That Changed Everything

Think about the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma” and “Let’s eat Grandma.” Same words. Same intent (hopefully). But that tiny comma sitting in between completely rewrites the story. The comma doesn’t do much on its own—it’s just a squiggly line with commitment issues. But in context? It’s the difference between dinner and a horror movie.

This is the space between things working overtime. The meaning isn’t in “Let’s” or “eat” or “Grandma.” It’s in how they dance together, separated by that little pause that says, “Wait, I need you to know something important here.”

The Art of the Awkward Pause

Remember those conversation moments when someone says something and then… nothing? Not an uncomfortable nothing, but a pregnant pause where both of you are processing? The silence isn’t empty—it’s doing heavy lifting. It’s holding space for what was just said to land, for what comes next to matter.

Stand-up comedians are masters of this. The joke isn’t just the punchline. It’s the timing, the pause, the way they let the audience sit with the setup just long enough to think they know where it’s going before—bam—the twist hits. The laugh lives in that gap between expectation and reality.

Love in the Age of Ellipses

Ever notice how much work those three dots do in text messages?

“We need to talk…”

“I’m fine…”

“Sure…”

Each set of dots carries a different emotional weight. They’re the digital equivalent of that look your mom gives you when you’ve done something wrong but she’s not sure what yet. The dots don’t say anything, but they say everything. They’re the space between what we type and what we really mean.

The Spaces That Shape Us

Cities work this way too. The magic of a neighborhood isn’t really in the buildings—it’s in the spaces between them. The way that coffee shop sits next to the vintage bookstore next to the place that definitely launders money but makes amazing dumplings. None of these places are special on their own, but together? They create something you can’t quite name but definitely feel.

It’s like how friendship works. You and your best friend aren’t fascinating individuals who happen to know each other. The friendship lives in the space between you—in the shared jokes that make no sense to anyone else, in the way you can communicate entire conversations with just a look across a crowded room.

The Pause Button Theory

Here’s a thought experiment: What if we started paying attention to the pauses in our own lives? Not just the dramatic ones—the breakups, the job changes, the moves across the country. But the small spaces between one thought and the next, between finishing one task and starting another.

That moment when you close your laptop and haven’t quite decided what to do next. The pause at the top of the stairs when you’ve forgotten what you came up here for. The breath you take before answering a question you weren’t expecting.

These aren’t empty moments. They’re where possibility lives.

The Space Between Certainty

Maybe the most interesting space is the one between knowing and not knowing. We spend so much energy trying to fill that gap—googling, asking, assuming, making stuff up. But what if we just sat in it for a while?

That friend who’s been acting weird lately—instead of jumping to conclusions about what’s wrong, what if we noticed the space between their usual self and who they’re being now? Not to solve it or fix it, but just to acknowledge that something is shifting, and maybe that’s okay.

Finding the Beat

Musicians know something the rest of us are still learning: the rests are just as important as the notes. John Cage proved this when he wrote a piece called “4’33”” that was literally just silence. The audience was forced to listen to what was always there—the rustling, the breathing, the world continuing to happen in the spaces we usually ignore.

So What Now?

Next time you’re people-watching (and please, keep people-watching—it’s one of humanity’s finest pastimes), try this: Instead of looking at the people, look at the spaces between them. Watch how they navigate around each other, the invisible boundaries they create, the way proximity and distance tell their own stories.

Look at the pause between question and answer in conversations. Notice the gap between what someone says and what they mean. Pay attention to the silence after a good song ends and before the next one begins.

The things themselves—the words, the objects, the people—they’re important. But the spaces between them? That’s where the real conversation is happening. That’s where meaning gets made, one tiny pause at a time.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where we find the most honest parts of ourselves too—not in what we are, but in how we relate to everything else.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go stare at the space between my coffee cup and my keyboard. I suspect they’re plotting something.