I have been unemployed since December 2015. I was made redundant twice last year, and have been steadily applying for jobs since then. My first few weeks were unmitigated panic, which (due to some very compassionate financial support) then subsided into the guilty pleasure of free time, which has now become full blown, strident joy.  A Lady of Leisure (who applies for several jobs per week).

I’m gardening more, catching up on paperwork, helping out friends, meditating, taking care of my health and catching up on sleep, which has been hard to do since having children.  Still haven’t organised my house properly, but I have read “The Art of Tidying” by Marie Kondo…it’s a work in progress.

What has also emerged is unbridled creativity; things which have lain dormant for years, or put on the back burner.  And to be perfectly honest, it’s been overwhelming.

As a supporter of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in Australia, part of my argument is for the creativity and innovation that would theoretically result from people having more time and less financial stress (which I happen to be living at the moment).  What I didn’t expect, was to have to develop skills to manage the emergent creativity!

Still don’t have it down pat.  I will report back later when I can identify said skills…

I’ve started this blog because I think I may need to give my brain a legitimate outlet.  I have very patient friends who politely listen to my latest epiphanies, knowing that I’ll stop talking after a while.

So far, I am finding it useful to put my mental processes on paper (so to speak) so they can exit my brain.  I visualise my mind being like a fairy floss machine; it spins around really fast, and every now and then a daring individual, very carefully, trails a stick around inside and gradually teases out a long web of gossamer, longer and longer, twirling it around into one, cohesive mass, ready to be presented to a willing recipient, and then consumed.

Let’s see how much fairy floss is in there.