But to be on brand is to be 100 percent certain of who you are and what you do, and certainty, in art and in life, is not only completely overrated, it is also a roadblock to discovery. Uncertainty is the very thing that art thrives on. The writer Donald Barthelme said that the artist’s natural state is one of not-knowing. John Cage said that when he was not working he thought he knew something, but when he was working, it was clear that he didn’t know anything. “This has been my job in a way,” says screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. “I sit at my desk and I don’t know what to do.”
