A common pro-UBI argument is that it will enable people to stop selling their time for meaningless work, and instead pursue art, passion projects, or unlikely home runs. Opposing arguments suggest that people will instead play video games and intoxicate themselves all day, given both how cheap and immersive digital entertainment has become.
This has been my experience.
First, some background: I was born in rural China and immigrated to the United States when I was 5. For half my childhood, we hovered around the poverty line. For the other half, we lived like we were still below it. My parents were big savers to the point of stinginess on anything that wasn't deemed "essential" or education related. My mindset was always one of scarcity: for most of my 20s, despite making a 6 to 7-figure income, I was terrified of losing my livelihood and being forced back into survival mode.
When I was younger, this influenced me to work hard and follow the Golden Path that my parents had laid out for me: study hard, go to a good college, and get a stable, high-paying job. I was motivated by achievement, and accumulated quite a pedigree. The ventures that I pursued paid off financially, and I became "post-economic" in 2020. I didn't have to work again.
Part of the reason why I wanted to leave my blockchain startup was because of how random and insane crypto seemed to me. Traditionally, entrepreneurs got rich by offering desirable products that solved people's problems. In the crypto world, however, fortunes were sometimes made based on randomnesss or the quality of a meme rather than the quality of a solution. Though there were many intelligent people working with integrity in the space, there were even more who simply wanted to make "lambo money" with the least amount of work possible. I told people when I left my last startup that I wanted to dedicate my energy to something with "social impact" both because I wanted to make an impact, and also because I wanted to be surrounded by a culture of impact vs. a culture of greed. I researched and set up my philanthropy ventures quite quickly. Inspired by MacKenzie Scott and the idea of UBI, I wanted to spend my money getting it out to those who needed it with as few strings as possible ASAP. How to spend my time, however, has been a much more difficult decision to make.
With my material needs taken care of, I had the ability to focus exclusively on my passions. This is when I realized that a lifetime of following the Golden Path had left me with little passion for anything except achievement, and I'd lost my passion for achievement when I saw how random "success" could be. I appreciated art, but didn't find creating it fulfilling. I valued entrepreneurship, but didn't want to be part of the consumerist cycle. I cared about social impact, but didn't see scalable solutions to the problems that I was interested in.
You know how I actually spent most of my time outside of philanthropy? I played games, watched videos, partied, and got intoxicated. My stressors were pretty low, and as if my mind was confused about why I wasn't stressed out all the time, I even invented things to obsess about. Regular self care routines of meditation and yoga helped, but I wasn't any happier or closer to figuring out my life's purpose than I was before. I was constantly wracked by guilt over my wealth and the world's inequality. For some reason, I felt responsible for it, as though I owed a debt to the universe for letting me exist in it.
Finding myself in this situation has forced me to confront my self worth issues. It's ironic that despite all of my philanthropy, volunteer hours, and intentions to the contrary, I judge myself for being not kind enough, or not generous enough. I had never understood the idea of living a life for oneself. My mantra, which has not yet fully sunk in, is now"I am enough."
So I haven't (yet) used my post-economic time to cure cancer or paint a Picasso, but I've gotten clarity on my deepest blocker to attaining pure experience. Who knows where that can take me?
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