Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Surely it will! Allow me to take at least 3 grat items credit. Today’s bloghop-specific title, of course! (okay okay! lets compromise. If any Reader comments, “oh I get it! how terribly clever“) I get the 3 Item credit. If I don’t get that comment, I’ll fill them in. Well, no, I thought I’d leave three items blank somewhere amongst the 10. This is ’10 Things of Thankful, right? It would hardly do to have a list of 7! Then it would be the 7 Things of Thankful, and that would never do. For one thing, it’s an odd number.* For another thing, it’s 10 Items and that’s the number that Lizzi came up with, back in her pre-swan blogger days.
1) I’ll make that grateful Item #1. That I hung out at the original FTSF and came across this odd little blog… considerings …written in blogger, no less! Needless to say, one Post and I recognized a clark, and proceeded to demonstrate that odd, faux-contextual confidence that clarks (at least those of us with significant secondary scottian aspects) have, which meant I simply started writing comments as if I knew her already. Which, of course, I did. Courtesy of our little personality theory. (You shoulda been there… there were like, 2 or three comments on any given Post! yeah, I know! who would of guessed what the future would hold. Well, actually a number of us. It’s no secret that the people around these parts were not short changed on the intuitive gene.)
2) seeing as how I’m pre-claiming the free three, lets start here
3) I can always put Una in one of the Items. And that’s not an easy one. At least in terms of what I judge to be the standards for this here bloghop here. (not that there are Standards… per se**)
4) I’m totally grateful for wikipedia and his sister Wiktionary ( “..yeah, she kinda brainy and stuck up sometimes, but when you get past that, she’s alright…no you can’t set her up with your cousin Pictionary!“) Consider Item 3. sure we all know what ‘per se’ means, at least well enough to properly use it in a sentence. But 2 mouse clicks and you take a worn around-the-edges latin phrase and …..
From Latin per se (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and se (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).
très cool, non?
5) …(surely someone’s written the ‘oh! what a clever title. aren’t you the precocious one.’), sure, you’re right! I need to show more confidence!
6) speaking of self-confidence, I will thank my associate at the office who helped me realize that once I achieve a goal, I must act like I deserve it. This relates pretty much exclusively to clarks. (Hey! Thank you! Whoever out there yelled, ‘yeah but some of us rogers and scotts have strong secondary clarklike aspects!! We have those kinds of reactions too… get with the frickin Doctrine, ok?!?)
7) …along the lines of the previous Item, I want to thank whoever posted some kind of grid-thing on ‘the facebook’…. it had to do with writing shorter sentences. Or, at least, that’s how I read it. It even gave reasons, i.e. ‘falling into passive voice’ (me? passive??! say it ain’t so!!), ‘trying to get too much into one sentence’ (sure, but isn’t that what parentheseses are for? and ‘quotes’ and bullet
- points? I mean, they’re there, so it must mean we’re supposed to use them and besides
- this is a theme/topical as opposed to general/personal blog so I need to always incorporate the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine into nearly every Post… holy
- shit! this is still the same sentence!! I’m grateful we have a BoSR?SBoR!!
8) placeholder
9) I am always thankful for the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) and …and Seven of the most attractive (aka hottest (at least as appropriate to gender) Guard Virgins who stand (or lounge seductively and/or coquettishly on these, like couches without arms, except at one end it’s slanted…. I’ll try and find a picture…anyway) on guard to encourage the encourageable or chastise the incorrigible,
10) grateful for the new participants and writers join this here bloghop here… hey, tell me that this is not the best bloghop in the ‘sphere! See? You can’t deny it!
* an old Steven Wright joke:
“In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.”
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About clarkscottroger
Frist.
Frist
Tell me you don’t miss the A-Z Blogging Challenge or whatever you are calling it this week.
the ‘hanging out’ absolutely… the coming up with a name that is not ‘A through B Apple Challenge’… that was getting a bit tough.
I enjoyed your Number 4 immensely. Per se.
allow me?
The other day someone was on FB to say her school now doesn’t want kids to call them bullet points. Dots is the word they are going with. Don’t do it. Keep your bullet points forever!
Your entire #7 made me smile.
Hard to believe there was a time when only a few of us knew Lizzi. She’s come a long way with that blog of hers!
I did not know the actual meaning of per se. Thanks! The heart of a teacher, you have. :)
well that will certainly put an immediate end to gun-related violence!
she totally has… and that, that ‘heart of a teacher’ statement, great Doctrine-istic insight. clarks love knowing things, it is one of the few, simple, un-alloyed pleasures in the life of a clark and, as such, we totally enjoy sharing (knowledge). As to being teachers, it is well known that clarklike teachers (most often female) are best suited to the primary grades (where we can be among people that we have half a chance of not feeling so inferior to as to cause us to be ineffective) or the advanced school levels, college (where every male clark who has been wearing tweed jackets with leather elbow patches since Junior High School (by choice!) lol)
I’m sure it IS terribly clever, but I still don’t get it. Sorry.
It could have been better constructed, but… I think Kristi is bailing us both out!
ummmmm. sorry… I got nuthin’ still. And I even knew it was a minus sign… what obviousity am I missing!?
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! duh me!
What kind of dancing did you have to pull off to get the virgins to agree to that -3 thing?
two words: Chippendale(s)
lol I know! cognitive dissonance!!
yeah of the two things that have stayed with me for god knows how many years since catholic school are: guilt and an appreciation of Roman numerals
I kept thinking C stood for something … like centennial or something… but that wasnt nearly as clever and I expect clever from you… and yeah… lots of cognitive dissonance! hahahahha!
That’s a minus sign, right? Your title IS clever.
Thank goodness! (Now I don’t have to come up with an additional three items!)
Ooh, the title IS terribly clever – love it. Does it make me terribly clever for knowing it? Because I think I’d like to be terribly clever. Now Steven Wright – that dude is clever.
Your number seven is completely hilarious – made my day! And as for number nine, I was all “hey, Clark is saying the co-host ladies are hotties” but then I was “wait, there are 10 of us, minus Clark makes 9, so…no. No he didn’t say we were hot. Oh Guard Virgins…riiiight.
So perhaps I’m not terribly clever after all.
Good to visit here, Clark – I’ve been out of things much too long!
yeah he (Steven Wright) is amazing! I think I may have hinted at the hotosity of the cohostinae at one point in the year past.
good to see you on the circuit!
SIX credits, cos the moment I saw this, I grinned my head off and thought that ONLY YOU would think of it.
I liked #8. In fact, I liked all of this and it took me right back to my still-there ugly duck days of writing and wondering where the hell the people were…and yeah it was SO good to be back at FTSF this week, I think I’m gonna make the effort from now on.
Got a LOT to be thankful for, about that wee hop.
Chaise longue.
(and thanks for the etymology – always a delight :) )
;? (damn! I thought I’d impress everyone by using a emoticon and all it looks like is a guy with half a handlebar mustache!)
Totally remember the early considerings…. I think I save a photo from those days (you wore a sock-like hat-thing that I really liked*)
I thought about jumping on for the FTSF this week, but I couldn’t get a handle on the topic… next week perhaps
* me being Mr Fashionista of course my opinion matter intensely
Ah we DO know a good hat though, right?
Heheheh I liked your emoticon. And I can guarantee I will NOT like a photo from early Considerings ;)
no! really, I liked that hat photo… but, being a clark, I don’t have the…whatever to find it amusing to put up photos that everyone but the person in it likes to see…. (and that’s why we’ll never quite make it to non-Outsider status…lol)
Ah well at least we have each other here.
lol… lets all (as clarks) agree to work on (or, at minimum not get mad at the suggestion of working on) that aspect of ourselves that puts that qualifier in that statement …the ‘at least’
as a clark I would think that, as a clark (now) I can say… “hey! the thing that the clarks I know have that most other clarks would sell their souls to gain (provided they thought it came from a scott or a roger) is mine now… I belong. I have people who know what it’s like to be ‘the outsider’, not just ‘understand’ (as most well meaning scotts and rogers might say) but know the place I spend my time.*
*this is not to say that it is not a good thing to learn to lose the bad and negative parts of my world, but I know I must start with the acceptance that I might not be flawed, not defective or deficient…just got left behind when the door to the real world got closed before my 5 year old self could go with the others…. (hey, I got distracted and even though I heard someone say, ‘Come along children time to join the others and we’ll tell you about life’… I just missed before the doors closed (and, like in some movies, they disappeared)
The bonds of outsiderness are stronger, in a way, because they’re not predicated on heirarchy or conformity, but a state of the soul, and I think that’s something that we don’t need to change (if we even could) but perhaps it’s something we could change the way we approach…
agree (especially the ‘state of soul’) which for me is the most powerful mechanism of change available to us, this thing I refer to as ‘identification with’* other clarks. It (identifying with other clarks) allows me to know something about myself that I could not otherwise know, it allows me to learn something about myself that I could not normally learn and best of all, it’s a relationship inherently suited to clarks. we all have had the experience of turning to scotts and rogers for advice and counsel and such, and, though true and well-meaning, at the end of the day, we are not scotts or rogers and so the basis of the exchange is flawed. ever the Outsider I will listen and even know that what (a scott or a roger) suggests as a way to change and cope is expressed by someone who does not live in the reality that I do. this does not make their advice any less true or correct, it’s just not applicable to world that I happen to live in… when I identify with another clark, what I get out of it, first and foremost is ‘the possibility of change’. You live in the same reality that I do. If you find a way to alter how you relate yourself to the world around you, then I have that possibility.
Back to the business of the relationship itself, the coolest thing about ‘identification’ for clarks is that you can do it with or without the consent, cooperation of the other clark! of course, the value increases as the interaction (between clarks) increases, but the bottom line is that it is not necessary for me to participate in your identifying with me… which means….. I won’t let you down, I won’t fail, I would owe you something that I might be afraid of, and…. and! I am valued. good-simply-because-I-am… ayiee! what a concept (for me, at any rate).
* and totally not a new or original concepts, used by groups since time immemorial, but a ‘radical notion’ for our people, and heresy (if clarks were as organized as rogers, that is…)
So as much as anything it’s a process of observation and internalisation?
I like the idea of not owing. That’s really awesome. You should focus on that more, because that’s a huge selling point in going forwards, with the additional advantage that *should* we fail, we are STILL making an effective contribution to the effective functioning of clarks as a whole, because even if we demonstrate the ‘how not to’, we are useful (and we LOVE to be useful).
Yes. To others. We need to be useful to our own selves.
That too, yes
true dat
Thanks for this reminder.
You got all Roman numerals on us in the title, didn’t you? You did, right?
yeah.. (looking at it again, ever the internal critic says in my head, “dude! you shoulda done a capital ‘i’ I and then the joke would have made sense to everyone!) look for the capital i on the 199th post anniversary!
Clark, you don’t have to act like you deserve a goal….you absolutely do!
I agree, Michelle, but the Outsider in me is afraid of the good-will and support of people around me… ayiee! this clarklike worldview!! glad to have friendly rogers like you and Kristi to offer the view from the herd (which can be quite helpful)
My comments did not place where I intended. Such is the challenge for clarks :)
I’m not a Wakefield regular, but maybe the Doctrine has sunk a bit into my subconscious? A few weeks ago, I decided to get serious about drafting this novel in my head. I changed one of the lead male figures name to Clarke. Put the “e” on the end because that is the name of the county north of here. Thought it could be an old Georgia (by way of Scotland I guess) name. I do appreciate your British wit and congrats to you and the rest of the original TToTs gang on the soon-to-be 100.
damn! can I have a strong chin, aquiline eyes and a pierce gaze?? (though I will be quite happy with, ‘..he was of moderate scent, limbs of reasonable proportion and.. rarely spitting when speaking.“)
I love these whimsical wandering posts.
why thank you, Vanessa, they are every bit as enjoyable to write as to read.
(Hey!! Dyanne!!! Vanessa said, whimsical which is the word you always are looking for when you say, “oh no! is clark at it again?! his posts can be so….”)
Tres cool. Non.