I apologize if the combination of this picture and the post title brings to mind disturbing images. It was unintentional

I took a walk this morning because the weather was simply too beautiful and I realized it’s been a couple days since I bought a lottery ticket.  Near my apartment is a New York Lotto vending machine, tucked away in the corner of a deli next to a stand of stale looking powdered donuts.  Last night, during one of my now common bouts of insomnia, I did a little research.  According to NYLottery.org, the “White Ice 8′s” scratch-off ticket has the highest probability of winning you some cash.  Just imagine: your investment of just $2.00 can come right back at you as $20,000.00.  For those of you whose minds haven’t been blown by the possibility, let me repeat: that’s 10,000 times the amount of money you originally put in! Can you imagine??? Two bucks! I have two bucks! Do I have two bucks? Wait, now.  C’mon.  I know I had two dollars tucked in between that receipt for my Starbucks Vivanno and that other receipt for a pack of Moleskines.  Whoa, did I really order three extra shots of espresso in my Vivanno at 55 cents per extra shot? What the hell is wrong with me? I’m definitely in no position to be spending money on overpriced “designer” drinks and notebooks, let alone throwing away a single penny of it on scratch off tickets.  It’s a sad realization – considering just a year ago, successful self-employment had me feeling pretty great about my financial status.  Great enough to buy multiple drinks from Starbucks in a day.  Great enough to be okay with a twenty dollar lunch.  Great enough to drop five hundred dollars on a pair of Jimmy Choos.  Great enough to sign a two year lease with my 750 square foot apartment in the East Village.  Of course, just a year later I make the decision of taking a break from “the greatness” of being a 23-year-old entrepreneur and find myself unemployed in this fun little recession of ours, wallowing in the disgust I harbor for the poor financial decisions I made the year before.  

A friend of mine recently referred to this second year out of college as a “sophomore slump.”  Considering myself a sophomore when I’m no longer a student is rather unnerving.  This friend and I had both experienced very successful first years out of school, so how did we suddenly end up back at square one? And why doesn’t square one have padded walls and provide sedatives? 

Last week, Tanya talked a little about what depression does for the creative mind.  While I know many people who seem to find visionary purpose in their depressive states, I am running into even more who find it in the anxiety of unemployment.  In our society, being creative often equates to being broke.  The arts – whether it be in the form of literature, film, music, or what have you – are seen as the “extras” of life.  Whether we are creator or patron, we partake in the arts only when we have the free time.  

Unemployment is something like a long, mandatory period of free time.  For some, it is a choice to leave their salaried lives in pursuit of creative freedom. But for most, it is a frightening, maddening time (and we all know scared, crazy people are often quite artistic).  It’s all rather obvious, isn’t it? With the recession and about ten percent of the country finding itself with this newfound free time, the artists return to their art and the non-artists have time to stop and appreciate whatever artwork is being created.  Simple? Not quite.  It all goes a little beyond that… the recession is not just about lack of employment and the sudden ability to partake in daytime TV.  With lack of cash flow, we have to really think about every move we make.  We experience heightened emotions because our minds are uncluttered with inboxes and outboxes.  These emotions swing hard because it doesn’t have a weekly paycheck to steady themselves on.  On top of it all, you need to be inventive and really think about how to stretch your savings to cover this indefinite period of downtime.  These feelings are the toxic byproducts of unemployment and the only way to detox is to get these feelings out! Creativity is not a choice, it is an essential way to make it through these rough times.

Last week, Caleb Crain expounded on the effects of The Great Depression on creativity and culture and reminded us that as much as we’d like to feel sorry for ourselves, we’re not in the doozy that our 1930s counterparts found themselves wading through.  They were also without The Internet – our favorite thing in the world and an awesome tool for commiseration.  With sites like the unambiguously named FMyLife (the American version of the even more unambiguously named French original, Vie de Merde), we as random individuals are able to share and share in the crappy happenings of everyone’s everyday life.  Of course, this also means that we have the same capabilities with things that are not just complaining of our misfortunes and engaging in schadenfreude.  Those of us who are particularly assiduous in our quests for accomplishment in our creative fields find more productive ways to use the internet.  

L. Lee Lowe is an e-novelist who has experienced modest success with her two science fiction novels and various short stories.  Her stories, particularly Corvus, have loglines that prompt their potential movie trailers to play in your head and are available for free (doesn’t that make your unemployed ears perk up?) on her website.  

Oh, and if you don’t feel like keeping your eyes open for some reason, she is quite kindly providing you with chapter by chapter podcasts.  Thanks to where the internet is today and her own personal drive, Lowe has achieved all these things on her own.  I recently spoke briefly with her online (she and her family reside in Germany) and asked her a little about how she supports her writing career when it is currently not generating income.  She replied, “I have a supportive husband and live frugally, occasionally supplementing our income with the odd translation. I value my independence and am entirely realistic about the chances of earning any significant amounts from my fiction. A lottery ticket would be a better bet.”  While I believe doing what you love and earning money are not mutually exclusive (even for us writers and artists), I do think Lowe has generated a mindset that the recession-affected should adopt.  Valuing the independence you have in your non-working state will provide you with creative liberty and time – so use it while you can – until you find yourself gainfully employed once again.  

Until then, there’s always the NY Lotto vending machine.