Creativity + Guaranteed Income
“There’s a direct correlation between the likelihood that you’ll be satisfied and your willingness to be vulnerable.”
We have a long lineage of Black women to thank for revealing direct correlations between imagination, creativity, and risk to socioeconomic status, rest, and free time.
Octavia Butler.
Audre Lorde.
Toni Morrison.
Tricia Hersey.
N.K. Jemisin.
adrienne maree brown.
And so many more.
As even Roxane Gay mentions here, living in a culture that doesn't much care for your thriving so much as it cares about your productivity and money-making ability (and even your death) doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity and risk-taking unless you have some pretty wild support systems that allow you to pull it off.
The more marginalized your identities, the more true this often becomes.
Do you always have agency, even within the systems that make accessing your creativity difficult? Yes. I mean, I run a thing called "This PLUS That," after all. Nuance is real, y'all. (Nataline Cruz has really been helping me remember my own power here lately, too.) Still, others often have an easier time of it.
Given that, and given my sincere belief that we literally NEED you to do the work that lights you up in this world—the work that not only heals you but heals others in its deep-rooted joy, as an offering you give, whether it's running a car wash or writing a play—I find it really important to consistently speak about access and privilege. Especially my own. I want to be honest about the kinds of resources that allow me to take risks and put my creative work out in the world.
Never have I been more passionate about this than after the last year and a half.
Why?
In January 2020, I quit my full-time job to start a company.
I made some early money, but I began dipping into my personal bank accounts very quickly.
By March, as you know, the world changed. Though I offered advice calls over Zoom, making it an ideal pandemic business model, not many people rushed to dump money into the kinds of services I offered.
So, by May, I received a PPP loan, which lasted me through June.
By July, I was approved for unemployment under new federal allowances.
And when we turned over into 2021, the government extended those unemployment benefits through this month.
That was really a good thing for me because I decided to shut down my business in March. I just felt in my body like continuing to do work that drained me could, in fact, kill me. There were increasingly severe panic attacks, nights where I didn't sleep at all, and calls with friends, begging them to tell me to stop until I finally closed up shop and took a hard step back.
In that step back, I started to ask a lot of questions.
Why had I created a business I didn't want to run?
Why did I throw a wrench in it every time I neared public success?
Why had I continued in a profession—branding and marketing—that I hadn't wanted to be in for more than a decade?
Why did I feel like I had to keep doing this thing I hated?
Why had I not taken the risk of finally doing the creative work I'd always wanted to do?
Because marketing made me money.
Marketing is how I know to monetize my skills.
Marketing is how I stay safe and secure.
So, when I shut the business down, financial risk be damned, and used the benefit of unemployment money to float me for a few weeks while I figured out what the hell to do with my life, I knew it came with finally facing these hard questions.
And in that glorious space, I started writing again. Here, to you.
And I came up with the idea for a podcast (coming soon! I can't wait to tell you more!).
And, you know what?
It has changed my ever-loving life. I feel so utterly fulfilled, so aligned with my own integrity and sense of purpose, and like I have finally found clarity after nearly 40 years of wondering what the heck to do with myself.
If this isn't translating for you, let me be more clear:
This period of time has afforded me the benefit of what amounts to guaranteed income—a kind of social dividend or universal basic income. Having that safety net not only kept me fed, but it opened up possibilities that would have likely taken years to get to otherwise, if at all. It is a level of privilege relatively few people in HISTORY have had. In fact, it is directly opposite the experience of most people during COVID.
Now, then, I feel more convinced than ever that universal basic income, social dividends, and/or "guaranteed income" should be a goddamn right for every single human. This gift I've been given should belong to everyone. And I feel determined to do what I can to support it becoming a reality.
Since I did nothing to "deserve” this—the real definition of a gift—I feel a deep sense of karmic debt to the universe. I want to fight for and allow others to access the same kinds of space and time in their lives, too.
Only out of that place can I come to you honestly, advocating for your own creativity, vulnerability, and risk-taking.
All of that said, then, I'd like to ask your help in promoting this project from Roxane Gay and Mayors for Guaranteed Income.
Please spread the word as you can.
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