Variety, flexibility, experimentation, diversity—all these are essential in your work. This doesn’t mean that every new thing you make should be totally different from what you’ve done before. That’s a sign that you’re scared, lazy, or some kind of performative blowhard. (Careful, men.) The real value of inconsistency is that it can bring about what Milan Kundera called “sudden densities”—moments when something appears in your work that gives you an opening, some oddity or mutation that sets you off in a new direction. Variability allows your work to breathe; it helps you to steer clear of tyrannies and find charm in the unfamiliar. Try whatever you want to try: different sizes, tools, materials, subjects, anything. You’re not making “product.” Don’t resist something if you’re afraid it’s taking you far afield of your usual direction. That’s the wild animal in you, feeding. This is how you will evolve new systems of meaning, new combinations and unexpected unions. The way you keep from being caged.