Most people spend their lives trying to remove uncertainty.
They want plans. Maps. Checklists. Guarantees.
They want to know exactly what is going to happen before they take the first step.
I understand why.
The unknown is uncomfortable.
But I think there is a cost to that.
I was listening to Reggie Watts talk about his creative process, and he said something that hit me square in the teeth. He intentionally stays a little underprepared.
Not lazy.
Not ignorant.
Not reckless.
Underprepared.
At first, that sounds stupid.
We are taught that preparation is the answer to everything. More information. More planning. More certainty.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized he might be protecting something the rest of us are accidentally killing.
Novelty.
Discovery.
Wonder.
When every moment is planned, there is no room left for life to surprise you.
Think about it.
Most people wake up at the same time. Drive the same roads. Eat the same food. Watch the same shows. Have the same arguments. Think the same thoughts.
Then they wonder where all the color went.
They wonder why life feels flat.
Well, what did you expect?
You built a machine designed to eliminate randomness.
Reggie does the opposite.
He walks onto a stage without knowing exactly what is going to happen. He leaves room for mistakes. He leaves room for accidents. He leaves room for reality to show up and contribute to the conversation.
Most people are trying to control life.
He is trying to experience it.
That is a very different thing.
The older I get, the more I think one of the greatest mistakes people make is treating existence like it is normal.
Nothing about this is normal.
Nothing.
You are sitting on a rock flying through space at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour around a giant nuclear explosion.
You are made from the ashes of dead stars.
The atoms in your body are older than the Earth.
You somehow became conscious enough to wonder why you exist.
And after all of that, you are worried because somebody didn’t like your Facebook post.
Come on.
Look around.
This place is insane.
And I mean that in the best possible way.
The fact that anything exists at all is weird.
The fact that life exists is weird.
The fact that consciousness exists is weird.
The fact that you and I are here discussing it is weird.
The anomaly is not some rare event.
The anomaly is existence itself.
I think Reggie understands that.
Maybe not in those exact words, but he lives like somebody who still notices it.
He doesn’t seem interested in turning life into a solved equation.
He seems interested in remaining surprised by it.
That takes courage.
Because certainty feels safe.
Wonder does not.
Wonder requires you to admit that you don’t know.
Wonder requires you to stand at the edge of the map and keep walking.
That is where ingenuity comes from.
That is where art comes from.
That is where discovery comes from.
You don’t get those things from certainty.
You get them from participation.
You get them from paying attention.
You get them from being willing to say, “I don’t know what happens next, but let’s find out.”
Maybe that is what being underprepared really means.
Not a lack of preparation.
A refusal to let preparation become a prison.
Knowing enough to function, but leaving enough space for reality to speak.
Because life is not a problem to solve.
Life is an anomaly to witness.
And if you can hold onto that for even a few moments each day, the world starts looking a lot less ordinary.
Not because it changed.
Because you finally noticed it.
