(pre)TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘since you ask, yes, you are in the future… how’s it goin up there?’ | the Wakefield Doctrine (pre)TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘since you ask, yes, you are in the future… how’s it goin up there?’ | the Wakefield Doctrine

(pre)TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘since you ask, yes, you are in the future… how’s it goin up there?’

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

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Of late, the percentage of ‘first time’ participants in our little gratitude ‘hop seems to be on the increase. That’s pretty cool. ‘being made to feel comfortable and welcome’ is a quality that has always impressed me with ‘the bloghop that Lizzi built’. Not surprisingly, we all tend to see those concerns and questions (as expressed/implied, inferred or simply stated) that resonate personally, so allow me to say, ‘hey new participants! not only is this the best bloghop in the ‘sphere, but it is the simplest, from a ‘how does it work/what are the rules’ perspective . No, really. I mean that!  (…come on guys, I’m being sincere.)  What I’d like to say is simply this: it is the participation in a gratitude bloghop (that) engenders the benefit, not simply how ‘grateful a list’ you might write. And there are benefits. You don’t need to follow a rigid guideline, it is the spirit of the idea (of a gratitude list) that matters.  Having said that, you need to have 10 Things (but…but!  that’s where the cool part begins…. won’t go into detail other than to say: SBoR…. hypo-grats permitted… numbering can be totally non-Euclidian.)

As this Post’s subtitle makes abundantly clear, I’m writing this list early. Friday morning early. And, rather than simply write a list…er  early, I thought I’d see what would happen if I set out to experience gratitude in situations that, though predictable, have not yet happened!

(to be grateful for, expect to have a choice to be (or not to be) grateful for…hope to be grateful for):

1) Looking out the window, it’s totally cloudy. That’s a good thing! As we all know, the really cold weather comes with high pressure systems and, (in this part of the country), north or northwest winds.  So, I’m hoping to be grateful for less, ‘are-you-fricken-kidding!?!’ temperatures today.

2) the previous item generates a reminiscence of days fishing… the wind direction was/is everything, when it comes to the ocean. A ‘Fair Wind’ (usually incorporated  into the phrase, ‘fair wind and following seas’), the part of the Ocean where I was, was a Southwest wind.  (picture Atlantic seaboard)… and, gannets   no! seriously if you haven’t seen these birds in action,  you owe it to yourself to watch the following, not CGI…thats exactly how it looks.

3) Phyllis and Una… (this will be an easy one) like everyone, a very balanced morning routine, centered on Una having breakfast and then going outside and settling into her day job (i.e. guarding the house from the lower level)… I try to hold her example of the simple approach to (a) day as I venture out.

4) car…. like the car, enjoy driving… kinda of a real long-standing ‘good thing in life’, this driving around through the world  (clarks will recognize the natural affinity for this particular activity)

5) work…. now, this is where the challenge begins… I recognize the choice I have (in virtually all situations)…. will report back on success/failure tomorrow (Saturday  (your present….my future…ya know?))

6) cows!  damn!  I’ll try to remember to get the cow-of-the-week photo, will add it below this item. (I know that some co-hostinae are ocean-challenged by virtue of their living arrangements… not that farm life is not an interesting thing… but, seriously   you saw the video of the gannets…. what could cows do that’s as cool as that…. Christine?  do the pigs do anything acrobatic when no one is looking?)  will get you a photo

I said, "are you talking to me?"

I said, “are you talking to me?”

7) Will cite the Wakefield Doctrine. Not that it takes anything special to feel a sense of gratitude for it… it’s a way of looking at the world around me that permits me to trick myself into seeing the world differently…. not necessarily a good thing, in and of itself, but I wouldn’t trade having it for anything in the world

8) I should clarify my point about using items of hypo-gratitude in writing a list for this bloghop…. totally permissible. Funny thing, as I write that, I think… “but, clark, dude! suppose someone comes in and gets all ‘the world sucks and ain’t nothin good about it’ with they list?  won’t that bring everyone down?”  Two words:  no.   I am willing to bet my seat at TToT co-host dinner-and-then-do-your-homework table that the effects of such a list would eventually result in the writer feeling better… provided they came back at least 2 more weeks…  (no, new Readers, there is no, actual, physical TToT co-host dinner table…though that would be cool, you got to admit

9) gratitude to be determined

10) 1.3 binyons!! 1.3!!

 

 

Ten Things of Thankful

 

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… aka ‘Diving Duck Blues’

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clarkscottroger About clarkscottroger
Well, what exactly do you want to know? Whether I am a clark or a scott or roger? If you have to ask, then you need to keep reading the Posts for two reasons: a)to get a clear enough understanding to be able to make the determination of which type I am and 2) to realize that by definition I am all three.* *which is true for you as well, all three...but mostly one

Comments

  1. Ok, you owe me one Cow of the Week photo, Clark!

  2. Holy shit! 75 mph?! No mid-flight or underwater gannet collisions? Thanks for the vid. Fascinating and cool!
    Nice list this week. Methinks Michelle, being FRIST and all, should get a Cow of the Week photo. Whose with me?!

  3. Jen @ Driftwood Gardens says:

    I would love to see a cow of the week. I have read that pigs are actually smarter than dogs, and are about as intelligent as a three year old child. Of course Una might not agree with me (and please don’t tell Duke I said that). I like your neatly numbered list this week, and your good example of how to use the SBoR for our newest participants here. IF there was a host dinner party for this hop, I would have to crash it.

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      Jen
      I read the same thing (and I also am old enough to know of Arnold Ziffle… cultural reference, actually carried into the near present, in the form of a reference in Pulp Fiction!)
      you would surely not need to crash it, however, were that to occur, I would totally like it if you (and your friends) took the approach of infiltrating said dinner party, disguised as staff, of course! I’m heading toward a visual…. those mutated French/proper English Abby kind of uniforms that I seem to have lodged in my head from god knows what sources… yes, I will stop now
      lol

  4. fangboner1 says:

    Underwater always fascinates me. I also am fascinated by the opposite extreme of birds in the air. Like how the freak an osprey will plummet 90 mph into the water after a fish and NOT break its freaking neck!

  5. Kristi says:

    One week it was the mental image of the co-hosts as school children, now you have us at a dinner party. Here’s the homework assignment: write a post describing the event. (Of course, you will use the Wakefield Doctrine to explain the clarks, scotts, and rogers among us.) :-)

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      Kristi

      that does sound like fun… all co-hostinae and possibly some of the others (Jen and them) as crashers.
      Any thoughts as to a particular milieu?
      I immediately think of English Society when the topic of formal dinner parties or… if not that, then I’m somehow in the 1950s and 1960’s (for all you non-old people that would be like the old TV series ‘Mad Men’

      thank you for the suggestion (you know that, as a roger, your role would be critical in execution, but understated in the drama (occurring during the party, that is)… but I get that it needs to be a formal dinner party.

      • Kristi says:

        It is OK to stay on the casual side of formal. How about an at-home venue? If this were to be a real event, I’d just say come to my house–that’s how we do our Guide Dog puppy Christmas parties! (Dogs are invited, too, of course.) Hmm, I wonder if this is how blogging conferences begin?

  6. ivywalker says:

    cool vid of the birds… two words… fluffy cows.

  7. dyannedillon says:

    You need to go to a county fair and see pigs being shown by 4-H kids, THEN ask what a pig can do (the answer is anything they damn well want to EXCEPT stand in the ring and be shown).
    I like Kristi’s dinner party idea.

  8. Pattie says:

    This is the best blog hop. What other hop has a SBoR/BoSR, SEVEN Guard Virgins AND a cow-of-the-week photo? None I tell you, none.

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      lol yeah damn it!

      now if I can only figure out how to structure the competition (at the First Annual Bloghop SmackDown)….

  9. Carin says:

    Predicting your thankful list means thinking positive. That is wonderful.

  10. lrconsiderer says:

    I feel as though we would have some kind of medieval banquet, with a humungous, wooden feasting table, just because.

    How many came true then?

    LOOOOOVE the gannets vid. Thank you.

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      lol… very agree (with the large banquet…with wenches and knaves!)
      pretty much all of them!

      yeah… cool, no?

      • lrconsiderer says:

        Yeah and like, trenchers and mead and a pig…

        YAY for most of them, and YES! Wow…I’m a huge fan of nature docus and that was a lovely snippet.

  11. Kristi Campbell - findingninee says:

    I love driving. For the record of the Clarks. And cow of the week? I can get behind cow of the week. And dinners and banquets and all that awesome list making stuff. Ok fine not the list making stuff but the other stuff totally. Ya know?

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      it’s like we could sit in the comfort of our own (living room, bedroom, dorm room) and go out and be a part of the real world…. driving, not dinner parties…lol

  12. The emotional element of gratitude. That’s why we do this, maybe? Righting our listing perspective and the downward cast of our moods. At least it works for me. I love your cows. Wow. Those are some sturdy fellows. We have cattle around here and I love to look at there blank faces and wonder what is going on in between their ears. Though ours aren’t standing about in snow.

    • Their blank faces. Moo.

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      Jamie

      There is certainly…. a stolidness to them. The emotional element to (the practice) of gratitude… very provocative thought… at to me as a clark. ( ‘clarks think, scotts act, rogers feel’ ) that is certainly the underlying aspect of my own efforts, however, by virtue of being a clark, I tend to be limited in how I can experience it. (and….subsequently, relate it to others).

      sounds like a good Post topic

  13. I, too, am in for a Cow of the Week feature. Love the diving gannets. And I definitely think there should be a TToT co-hostinae dinner table thingie. Yeah.
    I can attest that even in the crappiest and least thankfulest weeks of my time with the TToT, making even an effort at the list and jumping in to read and share makes a big difference.