Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
“…they’re all there, (the clark is so very easy to spot, don’t you think?)”
I would ask (my) Reader’s indulgence as I am still in a slight….transitional stage with these weekday Posts. It would seem to me that I no longer quite ‘have a handle’ on my readership, which is not a bad thing! The mere fact that I have a readership is pretending damn amazing, at least if you go back to the first couple of years of this blog. Back then, it was all ‘oh man! if I had a readership, then I would know how to shape my message you know? I know! lets give shit away!! That’s the answer to explaining the Wakefield Doctrine!’
…wait a minute! no, sorry, that is no longer the answer to the question, ‘how do I explain the Wakefield Doctrine‘ (But that question, interestingly enough, provides the answer to the question, ‘which of the three personality types is writing that Doctrine blog’.)
Of course all you regular Readers recognize the statement, ‘feeling that I am ‘in transition” is all anyone needs to identify me as a clark. Which, after acquiring a basic familiarity with the characteristics of the three worldviews of the Doctrine, is the second thing we all do, i.e. ‘infer the worldview of the other person’.
The ‘first thing’? Thank you whoever that was in the back of the room! Next time please identify yourself rather than shouting out questions and answers. The first thing we all do, the first value of the Wakefield Doctrine is to ‘understand how we relate ourselves to the world around us’.
Whole Posts can, (and have), been written on the topic of ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’, and someday I’ll get this blog organized so that you could search the Posts (all 1,042 of them) on such a keyword. For today, let me briefly restate the intended inference.
‘how I relate myself to the world around me‘ I did not say ‘how I relate to the world around me’. The difference is the implied responsibility for my relationship. It is not enough to say, ‘well they’re being a jerk, so I must be….passive/a bigger jerk’. With the Wakefield Doctrine, like it or not, it must be, ‘shit! I am such a clark that I am more afraid of being exposed and identified as ‘the Outsider’ than I am allowing the total lack of respect that the other person has for me. Oh well, guess I better not make a fuss, something bad may happen‘. When it comes to the world around me, the only thing I can account for is how I relate to it. However, when it comes to my interactions with the world (meaning the people) around me, I have total freedom and range of options, because I am aware of the nature of my worldview. (Lets re-state that, and then get to today’s re-print.)
I am a clark. I am aware of being an Outsider. When I travel through my day, I am first and foremost concerned with not being found out, identified as being the Outsider…in front of everyone. My second goal is to learn, from watching and listening, how to be a ‘real person’. That I am not (a real person) is not something I can afford to let the people around me find out. My actions, my strategies, what ‘I put up with from the people around me’ is all in service of this one (well, alright, it is actually two) goal. This is the difference between, ‘how I relate to the world around me’ and ‘how I relate myself to the world around me’
(Hey! you know, maybe this is the best approach to my current conundrum…how do I ‘write to the new Readers’ and ‘write for the adept Readers’ in one Post. I’ll do both!)
below is a reprint from…
Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )
To all of the new Readers we see comin ’round the Doctrine, we want to extend a three-pronged Wakefield Welcome (better write and ask one of the DownSprings what the hell that means).
Today we will get all basic-elementary Doctrine for y’all.The Wakefield Doctrine is a tool and (is) a toy for people with a certain outlook on Life. If you are the kind of person who:
- wonders if the things on the news are ever just made up (for the sake of the ratings)
- hates it when someone who pretends to be a friend to a person when there are others around, but tends to get mean in private
- thinks that there should be a way to make sense of the behavior of friends and family
- has the most fun, when out with friends, starting the game of ‘people watching’
- …is the person (at work or school) that everyone comes to to confide a secret to
- …is the person that everyone looks to when things are getting dull and there needs to be a party
- …the person everyone comes to when there is a complicated problem that needs unraveling
then the Wakefield Doctrine is for you.
Not a stuffy old theory that you take a test for or have to have some one explain to you and not a ‘use once and the fun is gone, like a piece of gum’, the Doctrine is a way of looking at the world and getting something back. Our theory of clarks, scotts and rogers will let you know that you have an advantage when you’re around strangers, our Doctrine will let you have more fun with your friends, this thing that we do here will answer at least one of the questions that you have been struggling with, the question, “why on earth would he/she do something like that? I thought I knew them better than that’!
Even though we will now tell you the whole secret of the Wakefield Doctrine, we assure you that it does not mean that you can go out and use it, play with it, teach it to your friends or otherwise get everything of value, just ’cause we told you the whole secret’! We know that this is true because we know 2 things that you, the new Reader, does not know:
- the Doctrine addresses 3 aspects of your personality, (the one that you think you are and the other two that would tell you otherwise)
- even though your think you understand the Doctrine right away ( we’re looking at you scott! ) and think you have it figured out ( don’t look away, clark) and you are sure this is nothing worth your time ( roger!) it is…
The thing about the Doctrine. The fun part and the exciting part? is seeing more and more people coming back and reading Posts and not thinking it’s all that weird and reading people who say things like, I am enjoying the process of watching the Doctrine spread and I am especially enjoying seeing a growing group of people who share this odd, but very, very powerful insight into human nature. We are the glowing French rats, the ones that Marie thought had died, we are running through and around the sewers of Paris, glowing like hell and scaring the everyday people.
We welcome you to join us.
damn! I forgot to write down when this Post was originally written… free Wakefield Doctrine docTee to the first Reader who can put the date to the original Post of this here reprint here and hey!! thanks for the cool docTee photo, Cyndi!
About clarkscottroger
I’m such a good people watcher, I should turn pro.
(voice over: Marlin Perkins)
“…mama lion looks like she’s asleep as her cubs play in the grass, the slight twitch of a leaf brings her to her feet, as the hyenas retreat instantly, fooled once again by the relaxed appearing lioness.”
Dyanne, I thought you only watched for people’s exposed cracks.
nonono…. she only PHOTOGRAPHS people’s exposed cracks…
Totes gross.
Nice music. the only thing I didn’t answer yes to was people watching. I love people but I don’t watch them. I need to interact with them. question:
can you be a scott and… oh shit i was listening to the music and now I have forgotten
xox jny
…and demonstrate characteristics of one of the other two worldviews? absolutely that is in the realm of secondary (and tertiary) aspects
Dear Abby, Oops, sorry, I mean Dear Clark, Clark…
Should I be worried or insulted that my Roger boss wanted to inform me first and in private about a big change in the office? She led up to telling me by closing us in my office in some sort of huge production however She didn’t realize I already suspected said change and accomodated my schedule months ago… she was worried I would be uptight about it …. It was such a nonissue, why would I give a shit! I ask you , Abby…I mean Clark, WTF?
Signed,
Thank God I’m only a secondary Roger
CRAP! I think my roger is showing…. argh!
zoe
well, until I am contradicted by any rogers (yeah, as if*), I would say… she was not concerned if you would give a shit, she was concerned with the perception of everyone else of her role in this (with the added benefit of closing your door, making the rest of the office all that more impressed with the (presumed) gravity and secretosity** of her visit… I will tell a story when I get to a stable location about a rogerian manager and very much the same situation.
so, was the change an increase or a decrease (in whatever)?
* Michelle is the exception to our… worldview-specific form of admiration of our bovine brethren
** not a ‘real’ word
Thats what urks me the most ,It was only a change in clinic hours….something that effects my coworkers FAR more than me… I will literally have to change one appointment . Others are having to change four to eight appts… but … I see what you’re saying and of course its that (especially when you know the politics)….duh me… With certain stuff I am far too quick to anger, which can temporarily blind me to the intentions of idiot behaviors. Thanks Abby.
(ok… at the cost of a half a mid-week Post), here’s the story:
I once worked in a ‘real job’, total Ward Cleaver, 8-5 weekdays only. The company was, interestingly enough owned and run by three brothers who were text book clark, scott and roger (respectively). In any event, after being there a year, I tried out for a job in sales/marketing that the rogerian brother was in charge of, I got a shot at it, transferred into the new dept and worked for six months… I was competing with another person in a trial period, which ended with me in ‘runner-up’. I got called into the roger’s office (and the door was closed) and after having it explained that I couldn’t very well go back to my old job, (seeing how I failed to make the cut at this new position) (this roger also was responsible for the dept I transferred out of…lol that’s another story) he said I had to leave the company. He did not say he was firing me, just that I had to leave. I was all, sure, whatever. At the end of the interview, the roger said, ‘listen I’ll be happy to make something up to tell everyone else about why you had to leave’, but I said, ‘nah, it’s no big deal, I’ll just leave.’
When I got home that night I started thinking about it and decided to call my friend Bernadine (who worked there) and I started out saying, ‘hey they let me go’ to which she replied, “ok hold on….now, tell me everything and don’t leave anything out” (she was a scott, could you tell? lol) In any event I told Bernadine the story and she promised to take it from there. Which mostly had her telling the people at work the ‘real story’.
The punchline to this story is that Bernadine call me that (next) night to tell me that (now this company was on a single, open floor of a building, cubicles but no real separate areas), at some point in the late morning, she heard the roger say in a fairly large voice, “but I was supposed to tell!!”
lol
HOLY SH….. hahahaahaaa…..amaaaazing … sorry I am slack jawed…
Im sure mine was about her problem with me being from the very beginning some idiot in management told her I turned down that position… we have an assumed (her assumption not mine) authority problem…
On a happier note I remember your blog post to Bernadine… she was pretty cool…not being a Clark and all! LOL.
good lord that sentence structure is gonna take some work to understand but Im confident you will get it…
What about the kind of person to whom, some days, none of it matters and they’d happily jack it all in?
define ‘jack it all in’, please ( I know there is some elegant phrase for a clark without concerns… ) (actually now that I think about it, there are a couple of phrases to describe different forms of nothing matters)
Interesting work story up there. Stopping by. Just finished my 30-pager on global education. :) Squee! Breathing room until I get started on the NEXT rackin’ frackin’ paper…maybe…Friday. :P This semester….four weeks. Not counting. Four weeks. Three days. Ugh.
An E Waze…
John and I were discussing clarks, as we are wont to do over the typical dinner conversation. (Incidentally, I have my favorite WD sweatshirt on…somehow that seems to drive WD conversations…)
But in the course of our discussion, my (scottian) brother-in-law came up, who’s married to a clark. (Husby’s family is full of clarks…I have determined this after much careful consideration…)
I think scottian BIL is married to a woman who is like…100% clark. I mean the woman is extremely introverted, even with all of us clarks! She reads things like the Odyssey and the Iliad for fun, and has her own office as a manager at a jeans company – sort of works on her own, though she’s in management. When she gets home, she delves into videogames for hours, haha. Never on Facebook, and would NEVER, EVER post a photo of herself somewhere. Ever. But, she handles my scottian BIL like a pro. If he ever flares up with his temper and emotion, she always calmly hands it right back at him on a platter. One time she was staying at my MIL’s and she got mad at the BIL. She went into the bathroom for HOURS. He was so beside himself – that was his clark coming out. The rest of us didn’t see her for nearly 24 hours. She felt like my BIL had been condescending to her. But that’s the only time my BIL shakes in his pants: she always calmly and reasonably puts him in his place. She’s a brilliant, brilliant woman.
But then we started talking about marriage pairs. You’re married to a roger. Denise is married to a roger. John and I are a clark-clark pair.
Here’s my question: what are the ideal marriage/relationship pairings? It doesn’t seem like clark-clark pairings are all that common. I hear of clark-rogers and clark-scotts…but how often do you have roger-rogers or scott-scotts? Or roger-scotts?
I will say that our clark-clark relationship is awesome, and difficult sometimes: we’re so clark-like that we often live in our own little world and sometimes after weeks of “hermiting” I am ready to crack. I have to get a little social time in. I practically have to drag John out. He’s got scottian secondary, but less than I do. I’m definitely more vocal, and have become more so since we’ve been married because, omg, SOMEBODY has to speak up. Husby HATES calling companies to complain, for instance, if we’ve been wrongly billed, for example. He’ll just pay it and hope it fixes itself. Haha.
Anyways, I’m looking forward to doing more writing “for fun” very soon. :)
Cyndi
the (various) combination is interesting, mostly in how it serves to illustrate a full range of the characteristic of the worldviews, your own example is a perfect example. The more I do of this, more I come to appreciate how, whenever I ‘apply’ the Doctrine, something is available for me to learn… not always change, but definitely learn. This last Saturday Night Drive call is a good example, but beyond the scope of a Reply (which, given the previous Reply to zoe, is saying a lot…lol) I will be trying for an Afterschool Special vidchat this week, Thursday afternoon >3:30 or so…will post the invite in tomorrow’s Post. my own clarklike nature has been an issue with me of late, and the whole… “I distinctly recall telling myself this morning to not be totally fearful about confrontations….and I firkin forgot again!!” thing is coming back….and like with your relatives, it is not the overt ‘dislike confrontations’ because I can get in another person’s face, especially if I am ready and in the mood, but more the ‘knew jerk’ response of me to situations that can be way aggravating.
and even though certain situations are in different settings, it always comes back to my baseline clarklike reaction to situations, as opposed to ‘when I am ready for it’….but I’m liking this ‘peer of clarks’ thing that is developing… hearing your experiences is beneficial to me as a clark…especially with some of the more ‘change resistant aspects.
ya know?
Your question Cyndi is one I have asked myself. Sometimes, my answer is: with no one! clarks might be better off by themselves! But I have sinced learned that as a clark, it is not so much as the “pairing” as it is about my own damn self. The Doctrine has reinforced for me that it’s more about me than the person I am with. How I “relate” myself to the world…if I can relate myself to the world properly, which is to say (as a clark), standing up to anyone who would challenge me/disrespect me (rogers lol) then any one of the 3 would suit me.
As a clark, the very nature of my worldview, demands I seek “self-improvement”, self-development. Implied in this, is the (lifelong) challenge of a clark. Take. Demand. Respect. clarks are willing to sacrifice themselves for others. Take a second to think about that…..it’s all very fucked up. Bottom line for me – if I respect my self enough, demand enough (for me), take what is there to be taken, then any one of the 3, clark, scott, roger would serve me as a life partner. If I know how a person relates themselves to the world, then that is half the battle right there.
There may be couple pairings that seem more…stable? but what does that really mean?