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

Today will be the start of our Summer Reading series… no, not just reprint Posts! (well, yeah there will be some re-prints, occasionally …like today, but not everyday! There’ll be contests and prizes and such, it’s just that I’m feeling the need to read fun Posts and write serious Posts, but lacking time and skill, I’ll need to publish these kinds of posts.  Hey!! Any requests, i.e. topics and subject matter, let us know. So, without further adieu, here….read this:

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

(I normally would spend a lot of time here,at the top of the Post, trying to avert misunderstandings on the part of Readers for the following, by pre-explaining and/or qualifying statement that I think might be mis…somethinged. But, today no. Not this time).

clarks mean well. clarks try so very hard to: do well, to live up to their potential, to not let their parents (and families down), to be good students, to not disappoint, to learn and be like others, earn a good living and support their families, to not be too distant and be the person that their spouse deserves, to learn how to act like others and not be so strange, (clarks) want to be accepted and will work and try without reward or reinforcement, towards this goal, needing only to not feel that they are being looked at and laughed at for being that ‘strange one’.

Had an interesting experience/reaction today. I often, when in a situation that carries the threat of un-wanted attention or un-earned rewards, find ways to sabotage myself. How I sabotage myself varies and is so innate that, in some circumstances, you would think I was doing it to myself on purpose! (lol*) In any event, for reasons unclear to me, on this particular morning, I got mad at this self-sabotage. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “…don’t you mean, clark, that you were getting mad at yourself”
Only at first.
And then, I was angry only just enough to disrupt the cycle, (which is often, but not always, possible to do). But that is not what prompts me to write this Post. What prompts me to write this Post is that shortly after this occurrence , as I continued to drive along in my car, I thought about my living with this kind of thing. And, then I thought of the/a young(er) clark, experiencing something that while clearly a self-induced ….’thing’, and despite knowing that it is/it was, all in my mind, (it) still happens.

…and a surprisingly strong feeling of sadness came over me.

not for myself, driving along in my German luxury car, working in a business that is challenging, enjoyable and rewarding, but for that clark that I was. and, (being in possession of the Wakefield Doctrine), for all the other clarks out there who have a similar experience. It really was quite a remarkable 30 minutes or so (see? I’m back to normal…I described it as remarkable).

As I sat behind the wheel, letting this emotion have it’s way, I thought ‘how un-necessary’. In the special mental/emotional shorthand we all have, I knew that somehow this self-sabotage was directly a result/consequence/offshoot of my efforts to learn my way out of being ‘the Outsider’. and, while I do not, for a second, devalue the efforts that I have put towards this end, (as does every clark, everywhere to one degree or another), I felt sad that I could not somehow reach back to my younger self and say, ‘don’t worry, even though being an Outsider is not necessarily your first choice, you are doing good work and you can feel proud of the effort, independent of whether anyone else in the world acknowledges it. you are a good and sufficient person’

…this Wakefield Doctrine, man!

(oddly enough, I was talking to Denise last night about how the Doctrine offers so many different ways to aid in the effort to self-improve ourselves, and that I have not even begun to scratch the surface, in these Posts.)

I debated with myself whether adding a favorite music vid, (thinking, ‘Werewolves of London’) would be too much of distraction from what I wrote, a typical clarklike effort to ‘hedge my bet with the world’… as much as the ‘smile of a clark‘ which we all recognize, the pressing of the lips together, a glance out of the corner of our eyes, all to make sure we aren’t smiling where we are not welcome.

…and I decided that it was.

* lol: ‘laugh out loud’ I am told that use of this…expression marks me as out of: date/touch/cool/current blog writing practices. too bad)