“Not sure.”

That’s what the chalkboard by my front door says—the one Warren gave me. I hung it where my keys go, so I see it every time I leave the house.

It reminds me I’m imperfect. That I’m not in control. That I can’t predict what’s coming.

Warren is part of my posse. He’s aiming at the same blurry targets I am—knowing full well that sometimes the target is knowing, and sometimes it’s realizing there is no target at all.

Only process. Only routine.

As artists—or any kind of creators—we act in alignment with our values. We move through practiced routines, again and again, developing and flexing what Daniel Coyle calls our soft skills: the agile, responsive, human ones.¹

The stuff we make—our objects, our artifacts—are evidence of our process. They mark what we’re thinking about, what frightens us, what delights us, what we’re brave enough to reveal. They crystallize moments of encounter with something outside ourselves that leaves us changed.

We expose our soft bellies through every repetition of the work. We do what we do not because we’re sure—but because we’re not.

We don’t know how it will turn out. Our imperfect hands show in the work. We will be seen. And we will see ourselves.

We embrace uncertainty.

It’s good to have a posse.

¹ In The Little Book of Talent, Daniel Coyle distinguishes between “hard skills”—precise, repeatable actions like swinging a golf club or solving an equation—and “soft skills,” which require adaptability and perception. The latter are not about perfection, but responsiveness: reading a moment and responding in kind.