Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Readers of the Doctrine know that on Friday, we participate in a ‘blog hop’ called ‘Finish the Sentence Friday’. The handiwork of Janine, Kate, Stephanie and Dawn, each week, participant bloggers are challenged to answer a simple question, presented in the form of an incomplete sentence. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong! …for two reasons. a) bloggers are, at heart, a competitive bunch and in a large group setting like FTSF, they will, to a (wo)man, pull out all the stops1 and 2) the questions (the fragment needing ‘completion’) have a disturbing propensity for causing you to follow paths (in your mind, in your past, in your life), that you will find at times find surprising, at other times kind of scary.
“If I could go back and do something over it would be…”
nothing…
That is my answer. There is nothing I would change in my past. And the reason why I would (not) change anything in my past is obvious to most clarks, eventually makes sense to the rogers and the scotts? no so much caring.
Which makes me realize that I am not giving this weeks’ FTSF the effort that it deserves. To remedy that:
the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that all people are born with the potential to experience life from one of three characteristic worldviews, that of the Outsider (clarks), the Predator (scotts) and the Herd (rogers). At an early age, one of these three becomes our predominant worldview and we grow up and develop as appropriate to this reality. With the Wakefield Doctrine, we are concerned with ‘how a person relates themselves to the world around them‘2. Understanding the character of an individual’s personal reality and correctly inferring which of the three (worldviews) they are experiencing, allows a person to not only know more about the other person than they know about themselves, but it allows a level of prediction that most none of the popular personality theories permit. It is also part of the Wakefield Doctrine that, while we all have a predominant worldview, we still retain the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two’. This is the key to the self-improvement use of this personality theory and the answer to the question, ‘hey I think I am a clark, but sometimes I think I must be a scott!’ (you’re a clark). So that’s the Doctrine, in a nutshell. (One bit of advice, ‘the Doctrine is for you, it’s not for them’ …ask anyone).
So to rephrase our little Sentence (for) completion:
“If I could go back and do something over it would be…”
I already told you…nothing. I would not change a thing in my post, because, (it is the belief common among), clarks that all acts have results/consequences/outcomes, and that everything we do creates a chain of events that continues on into the future. To many clarks, our lives as we experience it, is only one of a number of possible lives, each created by a single decision. An endless branching of futures. But the important branch is the one that I am writing from and that is the one that I would not risk being undone. Be it a change in a decision that I made: 13 years ago or the day in the first grade when I was called on or the night that Hazel was drunk and stopped by unexpectedly or the day before Ola got sick or yesterday when I thought I would show off with the Doctrine to Kristi. Nope. I don’t believe you can tell which of a zillion decisions is critical to the existence you are existing in right now…so I would not change not a goddamn thing. lol
“If I could go back and do something over it would be…”
What? Theres nothing I wouldn’t do again, but if I could I would do more. More than what I managed to do, faster and maybe, if I could make it so there is less drag on me by the people and the things who believe that they have time to waste. Each day is the day to live. To live is to do stuff to act…to: laugh alot/get into the fight sooner/ love him or her more/ worry less just live. So what would I change? I would do more
“If I could go back and do something over it would be…”
The question is silly. The past is the past, it is important that we have a past. If everyone changed how their lives went, then how would we know what to do, the very things that make all of our lives comfortable and secure and reliable are based on having a past… a reliable and consistent past. Engineering, accounting, all the sciences, most of the medicine, the entire legal system and your better cooking shows. If you allowed people to change their pasts then you could not have any of the Cable TV shows that everyone enjoys.. if people could improve, how could they scheme and trick the other team and be the only Survivor, the Biggest Loser, the Most Talented, the Winner? see? you can’t have people changing their Past it wouldn’t be Right.
Well, that certainly was….different!
(you know, looking back on this Post… if I could change one thing I wrote….)
1) An allusion to organ stops, which control the loudness and tones of a pipe organ. When all are pulled out, the organ can play all tones simultaneously. (wikipedia.org)
2) note: we did not say, ‘how a person relates to the world’ the difference in the wording matters, yo
About clarkscottroger
Seems like we have a good amount of Clarks linking with us this week, because I had a handful of people say they too would change nothing. So you will be happy to know that the Clarks are winning this one as of right now, lol!! But seriously, thank you as always for linking up and loved how you responded to this one!! :)
@Janine
oh man! mostly clarks??! there goes the neighborhood, lol I will seriously thank you for the whole blog hop, this is really a good thing that you ‘girls’ have created*
(*what? I still haven’t drawn out the scottian or rogerian women? darn!)
That thing about our lives being one of a number of lives, based on our decision, accompanied by a visual of a spaghetti-like tree ever branching off into more and more possibilities, and the one strand I’m on being connected in some way to all the others…I GET THAT!
[andbreathe]
And the whole rookie time-travel mistake thing, yep, with you there.
@Considerer
(first things first).. hey! I can ‘hear’ you!! lol good to have you back on the beat! (I will re-comment on your Comment a bit later in the day)
really good to have you back
I admit I skimmed: I have class in 5 mins. But I HAD to stop by. The “Downspring Goes to College” – hahaha – I see rogers, and actually, since I’m taking graduate courses, it doesn’t surprise me that I think my class is pretty much full of clarks and rogers. HAHAHA.
I’m also learning I have a strong secondary scottian aspect…boy…don’t piss me off. HAHAHAHA.
@Cyndi
yeah… want to find the scotts, ya just gonna have to go to the Student Union lol or in nice weather any spot on the Campus that allows them a clear view of the student er….bodies (“Mama Lion seems like she’s just napping in the tree, but from where she sits, the limb allows her both a clear view of the watering hole and an easy jumping platform. the cubs won’t have long to wait for lunch”)
I love the Doctrine applied to this post! Fascinating! And I’m with you- I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. It was really interesting to read the responses to the hypothetical do-over from clark, scott, and roger. And hey, thanks for your usual mind-blowing comment on my post today. Another one for the fridge! (You know- parents hang braggy stuff on the fridge? Right?)
@Stephanie
Thank you… (I was having a conversation with someone, about the ideas of Comments) and the challenge I try to keep in front of myself whenever I am out reading blogs is to try and find something that I can genuinely relate to, commentistically-speaking. I don’t always succeed (especially give the somewhat specialized demographics of a lot of the places I go lol) but I think it is good practice writings skills and all, never can get enough practice.
Thanks again for coming up with such thought-provoking Sentences to Finish.
Clark,
You win this week, my friend. Your line “everything we do creates a chain of events that continues on into the future” is exactly what I wanted to say. I also wish I wrote this sentence: “…is only one of a number of possible lives, each created by a single decision.” YES, to saying that we see our life as only ONE of a number of possible lives! That’s what I wanted to say. You definitely won.
Well done. Very well done.
@Kristi
why thank you, you ran a good race, the people have…. lol no serially, I hope my ‘hey I know what you are going to write this week’ came across the way I was feeling it..which was, in simple terms, delight in the Wakefield Doctrine. I realize that I am kinda really into the Doctrine, but to get the insight into the lives (or more properly) in to the view of their realities… that is where everything is for me.
I will admit, just between you and me, sometimes this Doctrine gives me the willies! lol I mean I know that it works, but sometimes I catch myself and say, “wait a minute, clark, all you’re doing is projecting your own worldview onto the Wakefield Doctrine and the clarks who have come around… your imagining all this whatever-ivity. But then, with the FTSF being so made for a clark (mostly because on the surface of it, a person might say, ‘hey those clarks, they’ll be all over the change the past’ at least the rogers and the scotts would say that). And that is not such a ‘reach’, in that, we all know that clarks are all about self-improving ourselfs… or rather we are all about wanting to …
in any event I am glad to know you and I think you won this week’s secret clark writing competition. lol
(me, catching my breath from being out-prepared for this race)
And yes, your knowing what I was going to write this week was perfectly awesome. I knew that’s what I would write from the moment I read the sentence. How I’d do so? Still not that happy with but the message of “nothing.” still stands.
You SHOULD be delighted in the Wakefield Doctrine. It works. You nailed my reality and often do. And yup, us Clarks are indeed NOT all over changing out pasts for fear that the one thread we “fix” may unravel the precarious tapestry of where we are now, and we’re not willing to risk it. Hale ya to self-improvement. In the laziest way of course. Oh, right. You mentioned that, too in your “wanting to” comment. Ahead of me again. Shit.*
*said in the best of ways
** don’t look for the 2star reference above because it’s just a random note down here. You totally won. And I’m happy to admit defeat.
*** well. happy, maybe not. But a big enough person to recognize it and not be an asshole in saying so.
Be it surprising or expected, I find it interesting the number of people in this hop that have had similar feelings. Oh, there have been a few that would have changed something, but the majority seem to accept the fact that we are a subtotal of our actions, and that change would not be welcome. For all the “bitching” that takes place in Blogworld daily, most seem to have accepted their present state. I wonder if this is an actual realization of acceptance, or perhaps, a surrender to complacency of sorts. Could people actually be living happier lives than they present to the written world? Or, is the “wallowing in the mire” of daily life the current expectation? I understand the older writers stating this as most have experienced much and recognize their plight is coming to an end. Yet, the younger writers, with years to go and much to still pursue, seem as though there is nothing further to adjust. Do you see the same, my friend, or is cynicism simply my accompanying sidekick? Good post!
@Rich
Good question/observation. My own feeling is that it is sort of like that chestnut (used) to illustrate some concept of logic (or philosophy), the punchline being, ‘all men are Athenians’. lol You know what’s scary? I think that there might actually be such an example. One of the things about blogging that I enjoy is that I am comfortable making things (examples, facts, historical events) up out of whole cloth as they say (at least I hope they do), but increasingly I am finding that I m not able to make things up, that there is so much information easily available that I have absorbed more than I realize and it comes out at times like this to ‘pre-haunt’ me.
My own feelings on the matter is I believe the demographic of the sample is skewed towards the acceptance of life viewpoint, (that and there being a lot of clarks among the writers). I don’t know how one could separate out the ranters from the acceptors, those most vocal in their bitching versus those who would appear to be more accepting. And then there is the very simple matter of the corner of the blogosphere (demographically-speaking) that we happen to be in…hell, there’s a Post waiting to be written… lol
like your way of re-framing the scene, dude. good obsequestion!
Kristi has so touched upon a common “theme” with clarks. Fear.
“…Clarks are indeed NOT all over changing our pasts for fear that the one thread we “fix” may unravel the precarious tapestry of where we are now, and we’re not willing to risk it. Hale ya to self-improvement. In the laziest way of course”.
Fear permeates a clark’s dermis like the blubber on a whale (ew, wtf?). Risk? You want to know about risk? DO NOT ask a clark. We will tell you all about the implications of taking risks and sometimes, most times tell you there is no worthy life without them. clarklike paradox 1.0
All this gibberjabber is enough to make me go finish the draft sitting in Girlie’s virtual garage since last f’ing week. Maybe this week I’ll …… Right there. You clarks! Sit up straight right the hell now! The “maybe today I’ll….., maybe this month I’ll….”. Today, s’all we got.(note to self)
I don’t participate in the Ten Thankfuls (yet) but I would like to express thanks to all the clarks I’ve met recently like Lizzie and Kristi and Cyndi for showing me how the “kids” do it nowadays. You guys, along with so many, many more (scotts and rogers too!) will be why I don’t give up on the writing thing.
I really liked this post a lot and the offerings of varying viewpoints within. Interesting to find it seemed so many said “nothing” when I’ve always thought the majority of people in life (including myself) with all the what ifs, regrets, etc would have an instance they would want to change. Granted some decisions may be major, which could in some way alter the current “you”, but others not so much.
Sometimes I wonder would the gamble on a major decision be such a risk? Am I that set and happy on my current self that I wouldn’t chance being different in any way? The life may be “better” or “worse”, but given I wouldn’t realize I’d changed anything to begin with, it’s interesting to ponder.
Jak
@Jak
“…but given I wouldn’t realize I’d changed anything to begin with, it’s interesting to ponder.” Ah ha! you have hit upon the ‘retroactive clause’ to changing timelines and (by doing so) provide an explanation why there are no such things as miracles, except for the people with the Will and the Faith to see them.
very cool (as V. Vega said, ‘to be continued’)