Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).
Today is Friday, which means this will be a “Finnish the Sentence Fryday Poast”*
Seeing how often I present the Sentence (to-be-finished) incorrectly (mis-remembered, slightly different wording… it’s a clark thing), I decided to cut and paste the phrase/sentence.
“One time when I was bored out of my mind, I…”
- lay in my bed as a 10 year old who couldn’t fall asleep and decided that the most productive and worthwhile way to spend the early morning hours (2-3am) was to try to remember (in order) the theme music for all the TV shows currently on the air …in order (from Sunday Night to Saturday Night) and! and whistle them**
- thats about all I can come up with
- no, wait a minute! …nah, never mind
- …it really wouldn’t quite qualify as (the implied) response to a state of excessive boredom
- but… I really need to give something more than a couple of interesting photos, a music video that you would do well to read the Parental Advisory label attached thereto… or check with Terrye real quick (as to how inappropriate it might be)
- but the thing is…. (what? this frickin bullet point thing is still on??!!)
- well then turn the goddamn thing off!!!
…better.
I was about to say, the thing is, as a clark I am almost always in a state that an (un-informed) person might describe as bored. But… at the same time I am never, ever bored.
How can this be? Well, it all comes down to the definition of the word ‘bored’
How can this be? Well, it all comes down to the definition of the word ‘bored’
Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings. (our friends at ‘the Wikipedia’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boredom)
Well the thing of it is, clarks are never in a position of being left with nothing to do. That is because the inside of our heads is…simply so large that there is always something to do; like that friend you had as a 10 year old who had more comic books/dolls/easy-bake-ovens/toys than you have ever had over the span of your short life. And this friend never seemed to be interested in the treasure trove in his/her closet. Like that…. the inner world of a clark is so damn big because of our:
- imagination: there is always the possibility of another possibility
- creativity: if there is no such thing as ‘never’ or ‘totally perfect’ then we will never run out of things to create
- loneliness: which is not the same as ‘sadness’ it is more a case of being here and everyone else being over there
- drive…to get in with, to be accepted, to be invited to join, to be a part of
So a clark is never bored.
We can, at times be: tired of this shit, how many times will I have to try and fit in only to have someone say, ‘what’s she doing here?’; really discouraged after all the work I did and telling myself a thousand times: ‘just don’t act weird, just relax and enjoy it‘ and the first person I meet in the day asks, ‘hey! how are you?‘ and I think about it before answering!! They do not expect a well thought-out answer, they are expecting me to give them the I-am-a-real-normal-person Password… and I fail to pass the test…and when I get my work done/finish the test/arrive early way, way before anyone else then I can escape to the place where I am happy being creative and inventive and accepted and recognized… until the Teacher/Manager/Friend says, ‘hey clark! are you just going to daydream your life away? come on back to the Planet Earth with your co-workers/classmates/other parents/siblings’
…what? 600 words already?
Damn… that my FTSF contribution.
(Better watch the volume on this video here, yo)
*…ok, clever idea with a half-life of 13 words. damn! I must be growing up (or older) as a writer-to-be, but I can’t see trying to do a whole 300+ word Post doing the same-sounding, wrong spelling gimmick
** yes, my parents (father, specifically) came to my bedroom to tell me to stop
About clarkscottroger
I am so with you on this one and never truly having time to be bored, because my mind is constantly working, too!! Thanks for linking up with us as always and totally agree with you on this!! :P
@Janine
…yeah the damn thing hardly even knows when to give it a rest! lol but it’s one of the things that makes clarks the secret-incredibly-cool people we are/am/is
Once again, I am fascinated by your interpretation and insights on the deeper meaning of boredom. I also loved your boyhood recollection of laying in bed and trying to remember the theme music. That is exactly how my childhood mind worked. I used to memorize landmarks and rehearse the order in which they appeared on routine family outings. Weird, huh?
And the bullet thing cracked me up.
So, Rich’s post about his dream sparked a remembrance in me. I dreamed a few nights ago that you couldn’t drive around and do your post that way because of a blizzard. (Don’t be freaked out that i had a dream about you- I am a crazy, constant dreamer.) That reminded me that I started reading your post last Friday, was interrupted by my children, and never got to comment and forgot to come back to it. And I feel like a Class A (insert one of my new swear words here.) I’m so sorry, Clark!
@Stephanie
weird? what’s weird about that?…lol oh yeah! you mean compared to real people
(there’s an idea! a Contest for the Best, Never Heard Before, Most Profane/Shocking Word/phrase to replace those tired old, busted-ass swear words!! Lets talk later next week about setting up a Contest (I still have a Wakefield Doctrine DocTee left…how could anyone resist that kind of Grand Prize?!)
The more I read this, I swear, the more validation I find in myself. Two cases in point. Bored? NEVER! I had a teacher friend who taught middle school and couldn’t – just couldn’t – take the summer breaks. He’d sign up to teach all summer long because “he’d get bored with all the time he had.” I was like, uh…what!? For me, I NEVER signed up to teach summer classes. That’s MY time to get all my hiking, biking, painting, drawing, reading, cooking, gardening, thinking, writing, crafting, dreaming, meditating, travelling, and whatever else “ing” I could fit in. Holy crap, that’s the whole reason I quit: my job was interfering with my life. If I could just figure out the money part…hahah…but that’s a whole ‘nother can o’ worms.
Case in point two: yesterday I decided to sit quietly before my next class (where I teach part time) and look at this bilingual book I was going to read to the class later on. I was really checking out the art and formulating in my head more ideas for the painting I’m working on.
Well, the classroom teacher walked in. Knowing she’s a scott, I decided to not acknowledge her as she seemed like she was on a mission, anyways. I kept poring over my book and contemplating. And I knew she wouldn’t really care if I said, “Hi” or not.
If this happened in the few months before I discovered the Doctrine, I would have made an inept, weird attempt at conversation. But now, I have to say that the Doctrine is truly helping me to be a lot more comfortable in my own skin and it feels good. :)
@Cyndi
Excellent and thank you, this thing will become even more applicable, detailed and beneficial with each example you (and everyone) encounters and comments on… I mean the fun is still seeing the scotts running around being scottian and the rogers standing still and swelling up…(lol) but simply hearing you relate your interactions vis a vis the Doctrine… enhances my own. Sort of like we all got guitars (or hand saws or crayons or flour, shortening and water) but we weren’t allowed to see what anyone has done with it, other than ourselves. So, you be all like, ‘hey! if you press 2 strings down this sound results’ and Stephanie might get all ‘ damn if you pull this switch and put it against wood…it will cut like nothin!!’ and Janine might run in and yell… ‘I just invented tacos!!’ and Dawn would be smiling and saying…’ok, remember what each of you have done… and lets get together and see what else we discover’
Thanks for linking up with #FTSF again this week. I find that being bored is something my daughters now “do” when they don’t want to think for themselves…I hope I don’t catch them rapping Snoop anytime soon {they’re only 6 and 3}!
@Dawn
….about that Snoop video lol (It’s not me! It’s the way these Posts appear as I ‘write’ them! Honest!) I don’t even want to know how terribly old that video was…but the key (to my using it) was a sense that no one (in the video was taking themselves too, too seriously.
I totally agree about being occupied in your own mind. It does come in handy having a decent imagination. I did, however, get a bigger chuckle out of your About blurb going from a) to 2). ;)
@Chris
…can’t remember if I stole that (joke a)…2)) from someone or just made it up.
…having a ‘decent imagination’ is sort of like acquiring good reading skills when we were all young… there is a point where using imagination aggressively and constantly start because it is not ‘an effort’ or anything we have to work at.
The Wakefield Doctrine seems to be sorting for people with that kind of imagination (we also used to use the term, ‘flexible intelligence’ meant to imply the inclination to mess with normal reality).
Welcome to the Doctrine
Glad to see someone else gets lost in their thoughts, doesn’t finish sentences, tries to capture every moment…where was I going with this sentence? Thanks for sharing on #FTSF because I’m really glad I got to read it. Even if I did have to re-read parts because my mind wandered away…
@Melissa
…lol
(…but there are so many interesting branches to thoughts, ideas and such! and…and! if you are learning or developing a thought or an idea to share with another, how could even more information be anything other than good? )
(you know, good in adding to the….original idea! which is over here somewhere)
Welcome to the Doctrine, Melissa
I love how Clarks are comfortable enjoying themselves and their thoughts….and that’s why there’s no time for boredom! Enjoyed Snoop Dog too…and your take on Music CDs!
@Michelle
…I’m glad you wrote in, was thinking about how everyone lately (commenting) is most likely a clark or a roger (or scott) with a very strong secondary clarklike aspect, which I believe, from previous conversations you may be… a roger with a strong secondary clark*. The ‘view’ from the rogers and scotts is invaluable as we watch how ‘the message’ is shaped and how effective it is (or is not).
* which means a person with a very strong affinity for history and tradition, a person who senses that there are rules and propriety underlying all, whether it is obvious or not, and a person for whom the (direct/social/emotional) connection between all people is very real. We look forward to your Comments, Michelle, as it affords us an insight into the worldview of rogers…which although we can imagine and extrapolate, there is much that we (clarks) cannot see clearly.
Thanks again!
…about that photo of your Wakefield Doctrine DocTee (against a landmark?)….lol
So there is something I have been trying to figure out lately… lots of reading, analyzing and study… only to continually find myself back where I started… And you know what? I found the answer here tonight.
I should have seen it weeks ago, but sometimes it takes another’s perspective to get a clear view of something.
Thank you. This was entertaining and insightful.
@Molly
cool
…the Doctrine is all about perspective and (in a sense) it is a way that we can get ‘another’s perspective’ even when we are on our own…
Me too on the never being bored thing, but when I was a kid, yeah definitely had those boring episodes. Can’t say I ever did the TV theme song whistling, but that’s probably because I didn’t know how to whistle as a kid. It does sound like a great time-filler though. When I was bored, I used to take out the “D” encyclopedia and look up dogs and memorize every breed in that section. To this day, it’s very hard to stump me on what type of breed I may randomly see on the street…I’ve got them all stored in my brain for life! Is that something a Clark would do?
@Emily
yes, cause with clarks information (specifically) and learning new things (generally) are their own rewards. there is a fairly involved element to the ‘why’ of this drive to learn new things and facts (mostly facts, less on the skills, curiously enough).
I like the way your brain works. I don’t like that snoop dogs girlfriend’s father ended his first sentence with a preposition. He could have said “Where is my daughter at yo.” But forget that, your brain is better. People are stupid, I don’t fit into any social convention so I have 2 friends. (real not webby) If people don’t want to know how you are they shouldn’t ask. So I don’t ask. I’ll come back again.
@Jen
that will be a good thing.
As you may be gathering from the comments, this Wakefield Doctrine, while a very excellent tool to aid understanding the behavior of others and such, is also a thing that seems to be developing into a right healthy and robust meme of some sort*. So much of what used to put me off about my interreactions with ‘real people’ is now showing itself as evidence and information supporting this whole worldview concept that the Doctrine is predicated upon. Lets us know if you have any questions… hell, call us on the next Wakefield Doctrine Saturday Night Drive… it fun.
*gots to admit, as (possibly) correct as the use of the term ‘meme’ in the above context, there is kind of a rogerian overtone…to it’s prominent use (as opposed to appropriate word). So, lets just think that I didn’t really say ‘meme’**
** although… there is also an argument for developing ones rogerian aspect, a topic that we spent quite a bit of time on just this evening during the Drive! Cyndi and Denise and Jennifer called in… good time
Now this is one reason I am so glad to be a Clark! Never get bored. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did get bored. There’s ALWAYS something I can think of doing. Probably the only time I get bored is when I’m sick of my own company throughout the day and then I need human contact!! Happy weekend. :)
@Melanie
…funny you should put it that way, Cyndi and Denise and Jennifer were on ‘the Drive’ last night and we were talking about ‘the voice’ inside the head of a clark… while very helpful there are still times when you wish it (your internal dialogue) would just give it a frickin rest!…lol)
I must be a Clark because I can’t remember the last time I was bored and the inside of my head is definitely big! And I love that we can still “be tired of this shit” because, yeah, definitely can relate to that. How funny that you simply had to remember all the theme songs and whistle them each night. I can’t even remember what I did when I was 10 and bored but I’m sure I wasn’t as fun as you whistling at 2am. :)
@Kristi
the primary benefit of being ‘an Outsider’ is that we do not have the slightest clue of where the ‘boundaries of normal’ are supposed to be found. lol