Mental Health and UBI: My Personal Experience With The Scarcity Mindset

(This post is meant to be an insight into the Scarcity Mindset and its relationship to depression. If you follow The Dividend Report and see that I’m a bit behind on content, this is why.)

For years, I had been an anonymous Universal Basic Income advocate. After Andrew Yang’s interview on The Joe Rogan Experience in February of this year — a few months into my latest bout of unemployment — I started a twitter account focused on answering questions about UBI and Yang. This account gained a following and after enough people asked if I had a blog, I made the decision to create “The Dividend Report” in an effort to finally turn my unemployment into a passion project.

A Vicious Scarcity Cycle

I’ve grown familiar with unemployment in the 7 years since I entered the workforce. By job #6, the process has begun to feel predictable: after about a year of working in one place, burnout sets in and I enter into depression. I begin to compulsively indulge in unhealthy foods and I go over my gaming budget (my true love). I berate myself for lying about college all those years ago, telling myself “I can’t spend that kind of money if I don’t know what I want to do” as an excuse to move away from my parents and live with my girlfriend. I squandered my right to a happy life by making poor decisions. Eventually burnout, depression, and financial instability boils over into episodes of extreme anxiety and I, literally, pull my hair out.

Eventually, I become so unhappy that I snap. I save up as much money as I can and quit the workforce with one purpose: to make a living doing something that won’t cause me to rip my hair out. In the months before I quit, I begin to spend a lot of time on Twitch.TV, watching people make hundreds of thousands of dollars doing exactly the thing I do when I come home from work. They are smiling. They look comfortable. They look healthy. I can do that too. After a couple months of trying to make it work, I reach the end of my savings and wind up in a new job, slightly refreshed from a hiatus but always just a couple months away from starting the process over again.

That’s where I’ve wound up now. Not Twitch.TV this time, but a YouTube channel about politics and Universal Basic Income. I have reached the end of my savings. I got farther than I ever have this time, with just over $100 in monthly patrons. But I am having to make emergency measures to pay rent this week. My anxiety is through the roof and I have pulled a noticeable (to me) amount of hair from the front of my scalp.

Every time I get back in front of my camera, I’m unable to finish a project. I keep looking at my hair and fretting about it. My viewership decreased on my last video. I failed to make this a reality, again. Worse, I feel as though I am taking other people’s money and they expect a service from me. I am constantly worried about doing right by them, but the anxiety is crippling. The cycle is about to start over, but it I fall further behind every time I do this.

I am not done yet. I will continue to try and make this work. I have to- being forced back into the workforce will eventually cause me to unravel. I am tired of the panic attacks. I am tired of worrying about permanent baldness from my disorder.

[A Quick Tangent About Hair Pulling

Trichotillomania, or hair pulling, has apparently been with me all my life as a comfort mechanism. As a toddler in my mother’s lap, I would constantly twirl her hair or have a lock of it in my hand (endearing at times, but often stressful for her). What began as sensory comfort turned into compulsive hair pulling as the years went on.

Trichotillomania is an odd disorder in a few different ways. Because it is a subconscious coping mechanism, catching one’s self in the act of pulling hair is a very rare occurrence. The most common problem spots are eyebrows, eyelashes, and the crown of the scalp (for me, its above my ears, the back of my head, and my widow’s peak). Women are much more likely to have this disorder, which is tragic given how much care and importance is associated with hair.

The worst thing about trichotillomania is the moment you look at your reflection and see the patchy bald spots you’ve made. The disorganized patterns of bare skin trigger an immediate response: This person is unwell. This person is sickly. Be cautious of this person. Thus, even more tragically, this disorder can very quickly turn into a self perpetuating problem. I experience anxiety and pull my hair only to see what I’ve done and get more anxious.]

My Questions About Value and Work

My belief in Universal Basic Income centers around mental health because of my personal experience here. This article would not be written if UBI existed. I’ve frugally lived off of $550 for nearly a year so far, so a UBI would allow me 100% more breathing room. Not only that, my girlfriend and roommates would each have $1,000/month more, and we could easily help one another save up for the things that are important to us.

This cycle of unemployment I’ve become accustomed to causes me to dwell on some questions about value and work.

Each time I save up funds and quit the workforce, the effort I put into my passion improves my mental state. I work out, read, and enjoy my time without worry (for a time). If work is so important, why do I find myself most happy when I’m unemployed? If I’m most happy when I’m unemployed, does that mean I’m lazy and a detriment to the people around me or society?

All of this revolves around my inability to process why these video game streamers or social media influencers seem to be perfectly accepted by society as a whole. I feel personal shame about my desire to maximize my time doing what engages me because most of those activities aren’t “productive”. And yet, a successful video game streamer is essentially doing the exact same thing that I am, minus entertaining others. (Keep in mind here, much of the money these people make come directly from donations).

I don’t want luxury. I don’t want fame or recognition. I live off of eggs and ramen, and have for almost a year. The only ambition I am driven by is to bring laughter into the lives of my loved ones or excel in personal projects. I enjoy expanding my knowledge and creativity, cooking, and critically analyzing artistic media. None of the things I love result in a paycheck. This appears to be unique to me, though, as most people around me say they go insane during long periods of unemployment. My girlfriend has a friend that texts her every day she has off because she “doesn’t know what to do with herself if she isn’t working.”

After reading “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” by David Graeber, my eyes were opened into just how much work out there is, at minimum, worthless but in worse cases detrimental to value or harmful to the individual and society. More upsetting, I cannot think of all of this without considering just how disruptive our technology is set to be. The projections for the future of work are alarming at best.

In the book “Ready Player One”, the future of work was actually digital. Robot drones delivered goods most likely produced autonomously. Twitch streaming had turned into the new Hollywood. In-game items were valued with real life money. Value is a made up concept and I clearly see the trajectory we are heading leads us to digital economies not too unlike the Oasis.This is a shocking notion to many people and flies in the face of our ideas about “work” and the value of humans. “World of Warcraft” characters have been known to sell for thousands of dollars. Virtual real estate has been purchased for millions.

If you disagree with my assertion, ask yourself this-

Why must a single mother work multiple jobs to barely make ends meet while a young adult playing “Fortnite” makes $10 Million a year? If we continue on this path, make no mistake, our world will be just as a dystopia as “Ready Player One”.

With a UBI, we can continue to find meaning in traditional work, but also expand our understanding of what “Work” is. If we let it happen without us, we’re in for a rough ride.

If you are a patron or a follower of my channel, please know just how transformative you have been to my life in the past few months. I truly wish we lived in a world in which your kindness was not necessary but truly supplemental. I believe UBI is the path for us to get there.