This essay began with another one. One I didn’t write about a decade ago. I was asked to write an opinion piece about Universal Basic Income (UBI) for artists. I’d been open about the role long-term unemployment had played in shaping my early life. Unemployment benefits kept me going for most of my teens and early twenties. The incredibly meagre capital of a $500 ‘dole loan’ had seed-funded the early creative projects that led me to where I am today. At the time I started down the UBI rabbit hole, but in the end I delayed and ultimately declined to write that piece—because the more I thought about it, the more I needed to.