Midweek Labnote 07/04

Hi there.

I'm Chloe Wangu, the brand scientist, and this is the midweek lab note.

Now, as you are maybe familiar with, you may be new, um, every month I take a week for rest and research, um, and I go on what I call a micro sabbatical, and I have been on micro sabbatical this very week.

Um, this week I am researching a topic that I haven't really had the chance to sort of.

Investigate very far, right? Like I haven't gotten the chance to like.

Leisurely walk down this particular rabbit trail before, um.

Before now, at the very least.

Um, but first, a little bit of context, right? If you've been getting the midweek lab notes for some time or you've been here on the note list for some time, you might remember a midweek lab note that I sent not too long ago with a resource breakdown analysis.

And this resource breakdown analysis, essentially what it did was it discussed three key resources that people have time, money, and energy.

And it gave us a means to assess those three resources.

Now, the reason that this was really important is because the topic of this lab note was about boycotts, right? And how asking somebody to boycott a particular institution, um, or a particular store, great example is Target, right? um.

That might not seem like you are making an impossible ask, especially given the reasons that we are looking to make that thing happen, right? However, it may also not be a sustainable ask, right? It might take more time, money, energy, um, than the particular stakeholder that you're making the request of feels like they have to give, right? Great example is, um, maybe.

Other options outside of this particular store um are prohibitively expensive for them, right? Or transportation options to other options um are not readily available to them, right? There are lots of scenarios, completely understandable scenarios wherein this ask is no longer a sustainable one.

And so it's important to be able to do something like this resource breakdown so you can preempt that sort of thing from happening, right? So that's why this was really important.

And this research breakdown really got me thinking.

About what happens in the lives of underrecognized people, um.

Given the invisibility tax.

Now, for those who are not familiar, the invisibility tax is basically just the cost of being under-recognized.

Um, it is what society extorts from underrecognized people.

Uh, in order for them to be visible at all and especially to be as visible as their peers, and when I'm saying extort, right, I'm talking about resources, right? So time, money, and energy are extorted from underrecognized people in order for them to be visible and especially to be as visible as their peers, and this extortion is above and beyond what their peers who might be recognized by default, let's say, but they have to.

Give society if they have to give any of those resources at all, right? So that's the invisibility tax, right? And so what it means is that under-recognized folks are having those resources that we broke down in the resource breakdown, unfairly taxed already, right? What I was doing this week was very specifically looking at the resource of time.

And that's because when you're underrecognized, it can take more time and effort and everything else to get to the same places that those peers of yours who are recognized by default can get to, um without as much time spent, effort spent, etc.

right? And So that brought to me the question of like, OK, under-recognized books are being unfairly taxed.

That's literally what the invisibility tax is about.

Aside from the various facets of the invisibility tax, how does this, um, Manifests in the lives of underrecognized people, and that's why the idea of time anxiety, in particular, caught my eye.

Time anxiety is just what it sounds like, and there are lots of people talking about this, but the easiest or most simple breakdown that I have heard is breaking down time anxiety into sort of two categories, existential time anxiety and daily routine time anxiety.

Existential time anxiety is this sense that time is running out in my life, right? And so sometimes that is accompanied by dread or panic when you're contemplating how finite life is.

Sometimes that means like rehearsing and ruminating on past decisions that you've made that feel like they've wasted your time, um, pressure to make like everyday moments count in life, right? Like all those kinds of things sort of manifest.

And so, This going on the gamut from feeling like I don't know what I'm doing with my life and I feel like time is running out to I know what I want to do and I don't have enough time left in my life to make those things happen, right? So that's existential time anxiety.

Then we have daily routine time anxiety, and this is that more common, maybe I'll say that I could be wrong.

I should look at the research before I say that, um, sense of time anxiety where it feels like there's not enough time in the day, right? So, There's not, I have a, I, I, I have a lot to do.

I have stuff that I need to get done and there's not enough time in the day to get those things done, and I keep falling behind, right? So this is sort of the two big overarching simplified categories, maybe I will say of time anxiety.

And This caught my particular attention because it made me wonder.

If underrecognized folks are more prone to, like, frankly, time theft, right, which is what is happening with the invisibility tax, does that mean that they're also more prone to time anxiety? Than those who are typically recognized, right? And so what I've been trying to do this week is explore the relationship between time theft and time anxiety.

So That's what I've been looking at.

Um, if you have thoughts or feelings about this, if you've read anything that feels like it might be relevant to this, or if you've had experiences that feel like they might be relevant to this, do not hesitate to reach out.

This is something I really, really am curious about and investigating and um I just, I want to hear more.

So, That is it from me.

Gosh, this is long, um, but hopefully this has been an interesting look into what I've been investigating, um.

Yeah, talk soon