Is it possible to extract content as a smarty variable

PHP
1

I have a layout template (below is an example but much less complex).

<body>
  <header>
    <nav></nav>
  </header>
  <div class="main">
    <div class="left">
      {include file=$content.left}
    </div>
    <div class="right">
      {include file=$content.right}
    </div>
  </div>
  <footer></footer>
  {include file=$js_scripts}
</body>

The folder structure lets me have the layout file and then folders for the content. The problem with this is I need multiple template pages and once the content requires some inline code it will change. There are also pages that might not require the js_scripts which will result in a smarty error.

views/layout
    layout_1.tpl
    layout_2.tpl

views/pages/mypage
        left_content.tpl
        right_content.tpl
        js_scripts.tpl

Is it possible to extract content from a page and assign it to a variable instead of including a file which may not even be needed. Im thinking something along the lines of this which will leave me with one page and the content together in once place

Layout.tpl

<body>
  <header>
    <nav></nav>
  </header>
  <div class="main">
    <div class="left">
      {$content.left}
    </div>
    <div class="right">
      {$content.right}
    </div>
  </div>
  <footer></footer>
  {$js_scripts}
</body>

mypage.tpl

{extract variable $content.left}
  <h1>Title</h1>
  <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Voluptatem, tempore, quae, cum, consequatur quisquam totam facilis illo blanditiis porro in quidem repudiandae necessitatibus dolores eius quam sequi labore impedit id.</p>
{/extract}

{extract variable $content.right}
  <ul>
    <li>Link 1</li>
    <li>Link 2</li>
    <li>Link 3</li>
  </ul>
{/extract}

{extract variable $js_scripts}
  <script src="js/jquery.js"></script>
  <script>
    $(document).ready(function() {
      $('#id').click(function(){
        // run code
      });
    });
  </script>
{/extract}