St Valentine was he a roger or was he a clark, the Wakefield Doctrine deals with the important questions of the day

February 14, 2012 By 7 Comments

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

( psst!  yeah, you!  anyone looking?  I’m supposed to be working on the Wakefield Doctrine book… I promised that I would stop with the nearly every day Posts so that I could apply what little energy I have to putting content down on paper. Long story, that’s not important now… what is important is today is Valentine’s Day!  And there is not a single person out there who writes a blog that can resist the obvious appeal of such a… a contrived, culturally supported, private interest initiated “holiday” as Valentine’s Day.  So a quick, totally self-indulgent Post and then back to work… if Ms. AKH or Molly asks… tell them you haven’t seen me….)

 

St Valentines is the worst, most contrived and cynical, gyno-centric guy-bait(ing), toy-with-the-emotions-of-innocent-bystanders, holiday on the whole damn calendar.  Of course we are all familiar with the origin of the holiday and the internet is positively turgid with countless blogs, and stories and articles that tell us all about Hallmark and the candy industry and the rest of the sordid tale of this day in February. I will not try to compete with these other more skilled and capable Commentators ( and -torinis), as I do not have the time or the ‘writing chops’ to do such a ripe topic justice. Instead, let me tell you about my most lasting memory of Valentines Day.

Third grade, parochial school (St. Imelda*) and a classroom of 25 students. The boys were required to wear blue shirts and blue ties with OLM printed on the front, fortunately ‘clip-on ties’ had been invented by this time, so easy-peasy; the girls wore the catholic school uniform, i.e. plaid skirts white shirt, socks.  damn, little did I realize at that pre-pubescent time of my life how potent that little Roman Catholic Church fashion dictates would become for me and countless other men at a later stage of life.  (In fact, I am feeling the tug on the cynical side of my writing-self, there is something about the whole, church-sexual-abuse-dress-the-children in outfits destined to become so hawt… lol sorry, again I lack the time or the writing skill to do justice to a topic like this… back to the story.)
So with much fanfare, Valentine’s Day arrives and we  9  year old boys and girls are told that in the afternoon, before the end of the school day, we would have time to deliver our Valentine cards to each other. ( The day before we spent ‘Art Period’ making little baskets out of construction paper and taping them to the front of our desks. These would serve as ‘mailboxes’ for the cards we would receive the next day).
The thing was, the horrible twist to this introduction to the world of love, relationships and rejection was that, the time when class stopped and we were allowed to get up and deliver our little cards was not the end of the school day! It was right after lunch… and it lasted 15 or 20 minutes…as in ‘ now return to your desks and we will continue with the afternoon’ classes’. To sit for 90 minutes staring at the contents of the container on the front of my desk… I will leave it to the Reader to decide the emotional landscape of that afternoon on a February 14th.

Anyone out there not comfortable with finishing the story, or satisfied with their conclusion of this little tale, write us a Comment! Regular Readers know that the rogers gave the biggest cards, the scotts received the most cards and the clarks delivered the most cards….secretly without the recipient ever knowing who the really fun card came from…

Now I better get back to work, before I get in trouble.

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*who totally twisted my life… don’t ask

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Video Friday Epistle 6 (wherein our persistent Narrator puzzles his-own-damnself over a question about the Doctrine) the Wakefield Doctrine, of course!

February 10, 2012 By 1 Comment

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

 

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Not that we don’t like clarks… hell, we loves our clarks…they have been the core of the active new generation of the Doctrine. In point of fact, Molly and Claire and Nell represent the most significant step forward in this thing of ours since the first Post was published.

Funny story about that…I was talking to the Progenitor roger last night about writing Posts and such and he related how he recently completed a Post that he set aside for a day or two, fully intending to publish it on ‘the Rag. When he came back to it, intent upon bathing in the light and wisdom of the insight into the nature of reality that he had written had… somehow mutated into a screed that had ’our Progenitor’ race around his house, checking the locks on all the doors and windows, because clearly someone had broken into his house and hit the “translate into unintelligible” key on his computer!
roger’s story made me recall the first Doctrine Post I  wrote, (which is also the first Post of any sort that I had written). After the normal experience of typing, re-typing and getting up and sitting down, I decided it was time to hit the ‘Publish’, so far, pretty typical for all of us who are willing to take the chance and put our thoughts in writing and send them into the world to stand on their own.
The fact that I am a clark, makes this story fairly impressive, as clarks tend toward the “hey I got it all in my head, maybe I don’t need to get all public and such’.  But the punchline of the story, and proof of my clarklike credentials, is that as soon as I hit the Publish key on the inaugural Wakefield Doctrine Post,  I immediately turned off the computer and quietly left the house …and drove around  in my car…just in case someone reading the Post would  try to track down the source of the Post.

As I was saying, one of the reasons we are so happy that we have new people reading and Commenting is that, with their feedback, we can guage how the Wakefield Doctrine is coming across to the Readers out there.
But we do what we can… every damn Friday  a video…a ‘topic’ and sometimes it is interesting.

And then there is today’s Video Post.

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DHS Statistics: incidence of non-consensual sex more than doubled during time period corresponding to the Super Bowl on Sunday

February 7, 2012 By 12 Comments

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

Today we will ‘talk’ a little about how you can use the Wakefield Doctrine to improve your day today! Yes, you read that correctly! We did just make the claim that what you read here today will allow you to do things differently, react in a way other than how you normally react and learn more about the people in your life….today!

 

First off:  you are either a clark or a scott or a roger. (No, you don’t have to read the “about Page’ or stop what you are doing, just stay with us… you can do this, we have yet to hear from anyone who said, “Hey I couldn’t understand this, it didn’t work’)
Which of the following statements sound most right:

  1. “…screw this…other than the Title and maybe the pictures, this is too boring!”
  2. “…no, I won’t answer your question, you have no right to ask questions like that, if I want you to know what I think maybe I would tell you but only if you tell me more about someone else that we both know.”
  3. “interesting…this all sounds somehow  familiar, but lets see how you get away with the claim of us knowing which of the 3 we are…”

Good work!

Group 1  you’re scotts and you should feel proud of yourself for making it this far, stay with us just a little longer and we will show how you can get way more out of the day today, and have a lot more fun doing it

Group 2  hello roger  (yes, this applies to men and woman and boys and girls) and yes there are, in fact, more of you people in the world than the other two and no, you’re absolutely correct, we don’t really know your inner most thoughts and we obviously totally under-estimate your subtle intelligence…but… you know how a good Ken Burns movie includes like the actual letters and things that people said, how it paints the complete picture of the life of the dead people that he is spending 120 minutes of black and white film on?  You can know that much about the people that you meet today. Guaranteed. Just stay with us and we’ll show you how.

Group 3 clarks…yo  hang back  watch what we do with the other two, you be alright on your own….one thing though…don’t worry about ‘getting this exactly right’ and don’t worry about maybe making a mistake….all the others reading this? they’re frickin scotts and rogers!! Like it’ll be a major miracle if they even know you write a Comment…lol

 

Attention Please!!

rogers: for today? today you need to be aware of the clarks in your life. They are the ones that are not taking things from you or otherwise making you feel good cause they’re telling everyone a joke and it seems to involve you (but you didn’t quite get the ‘set-up’). Anyway, when you see a clark…and they will be the ones who seem to enjoy talking to you and are offering to help you do your work, give them cover when your friends show up…the herd of other rogers…you know the people you are comfortable with but don’t really know and (for some reason you have never figured out) and don’t care to know, do something to get the clark to get away from the herd. You know that nothing good (for the clark) is gonna happen…

scotts: relax a little, when you get the small group gathered and you feel the need to crank up the volume (you know, when you tell a slightly off-color  joke and how when you see that everyone is laughing you know that you have to tell a dirty joke and if too many people are still laughing you have to tell a really dirty joke?) today…stop and ask the person in the group that is around you if they had one wish, what would it be? When you get the person who clearly is taking the question seriously….leave them alone for the rest of the day

clarks: stop thinking and do one thing that you know will make everyone think you are a jerk…do it seriously, no ‘set-up’ no mumbling just answer someone rudely or compliment a member of the opposite sex, or ask your boss for a raise (and don’t help him say no, ask and shut up)  do this once today and your life will not be the same again. We are certain of this.

 

OK everyone! Do this thing. You do the task we suggest and your life will improve because you will have the proof that what the Wakefield Doctrine has to offer will be useful and valuable in your own lives.
Hey!
Some of you will get yourselfs confused, either on purpose (I’m looking at you, clark) or cause you don’t really believe this (roger) or you were in too much of hurry…( lol  scott!)  But here’s the thing:

We all have the qualities of all three, just one of the three is the pre-dominant, main one.
The Doctrine is all about the world that you experience, not something you need to think about, just remember what we tell you and everyone, we mean everyone you encounter will play their parts.
Have fun…you can’t get this thing wrong….you can fuck up the instructions and trip yourself up, but the main thing is that if you are a scott then the world will be a place of challenge and conflict, if you are a roger then you think you have it down and the group will back you up and  clark?  welcome you’re home.

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Video Friday Number 5 the Wakefield Doctrine’s Supper Bowl XLVI Special!! (tell us about the Big Game and win a hat!)

February 3, 2012 By 5 Comments

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

It is not that clarks have anything against sports and/or sports extravaganzas, ’cause we don’t. But….

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The thing of it is, being the perennial outsiders, clarks have a little more insulation from the influences of those who would gather everyone into a big, excited, pulsating with anticipation, murmuring in hush but deafening tones, vibrating with the excitement anticipated, yearning to see the OMG-did-you-see-the-Staples-Commercial?
Each year we see the growing orchestration of our culture’s candidate for the Bread-and-Circus Hall of Fame Award. And each year, I find it more difficult to ignore the people who proclaim that, ‘I haven’t been following either team during the regular season, I really will be watching for the Commercials’.    (let me stop to allow for an overly dramatic emphasis…picture shaking ones’ head back and forth at a speed that blurs the features…cartoon-like).

…yes, I swear that I have heard real people make that statement, that they will sit in front of their wide screen HiDef TV’s  and wait for the Commercials to come on…

But I said at the beginning of this Post, ‘Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers ) and I meant it! damn it!
And as everyone reading this knows, the Doctrine is a way of looking at the behavior of the people in our lives and, by inferring the nature of the world that this other person is experiencing ( the cold and lonely world of a clark or the predatory, exciting and messy-yet un-imaginative reality of the scott or the ‘gather in a herd’, because you are the center-of-the-universe-warm world of the rogers) and understand why this person acts the way that they do.
With the Wakefield Doctrine as our tool we will be able to understand ourselves better and as for the other person, hell, you will know what they will do,before they do!

 

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..(BONUS).personality types, (INSERT) insights into behavior (TODAY)and a little backstory (ONLY!)for good measure! the Wakefield Doctrine

January 30, 2012 By 3 Comments

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

In a recent Video Friday Interview, when asked what changes or additions might improve the blog, Claire Peek suggested  providing insight into the ‘why of the Wakefield Doctrine’. (As Claire put it  ”…A new Reader might find interesting how the Doctrine was born but especially why….”  )

Far be it from us to shy away from a difficult task, in this case it is not so much a matter of the (historical) record of how the Wakefield Doctrine came to be, but rather the personal side of that creation/evolution/development. That is the challenge for today.

Easy part first!  The ‘Eureka Moment of the  Wakefield Doctrine ( nee the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers ):

In the early 1980’s, Scott (the progenitor scott) worked at a music store in Pawtucket. He was the main salesman and also ran the repair department (of the store), this included not only repairing musical instruments and equipment that he sold, but any equipment that might be in need of repair, including various types of tape recorders and other similar equipment.

One day I happened to stop by the store to visit scott while he worked. While there, a customer came into the store, went to the ‘repair department where scott and I were talking and presented to scott what was known as a  ‘duel cassette recorder’  (This device had the capacity to record two cassette cartridges at once and was most often used to copy the contents of one cassette to another cassette, what we would call today, making a back up. Among the controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ were two of all the normal tape recorder controls: volume, treble and bass. Where it was different from a single cassette recorder was that it had a Master Volume control dial, which, as the name implies controlled the overall sound output of the device.) The recorder that the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and had no signs of damage or abuse. (As the customer approached the counter, I stepped back and Scott looked up and said, ‘What can we do for you’?   The customer said to  Scott, “this thing is brand new, it worked for a couple of days, then it stopped working entirely, I can’t figure out what is wrong”.

Scott looked at the recorder briefly, without saying a word and then reached under the counter and brought out some (black) electrical tape, and tearing off a 2 inch piece of tape, taped over the Master Volume control (after returning the dial to it’s highest setting). After completing this, scott slid the device back over towards the customer and simply said, “ There, its all right now”

The customer asked to plug in the recorder, took a cassette from his pocket, tried the recorder, ran it through it’s paces; seeing that the broken tape recorder that he brought into the store now worked like new  thanked scott and walked out of the store without another word. A totally satisfied customer.

From my perspective the world shifted. For reasons not clear to this day, I not only saw what scott had seen (the nature of the equipment problem) but I saw that his solution implied a reality, a ‘context’ that was clearly different from the one that I assumed to be the same as everyone experienced.

That is the factual side of the creation of the Wakefield Doctrine. The personal side?

I had plenty of friends. Or more to the fact, I had a close circle of friends that I seemed to have acquired rather deliberately.  Sometimes, when I hear or read about people expressing anxiety about making new friends in a new school or a changed job, I will laugh to myself. I still find (in the fact of) my own comfort that this thing that real people seem to worry about, (i.e.making friends) is really so not difficult while at the same time/all the time, I feel so isolated from people in general. And the irony of this is not wasted on me! I accept now (as I did back then)  that this is just another aspect to the weird world that I inhabit.
In any event, back to the ‘personal side of the creation of the Wakefield Doctrine, I knew back then that I had two things I could count on: having a small circle of friends who ‘got me’ and living with a pervasive, never-ending sense of lacking something…  fitting in, being a part of, knowing what I was supposed to be doing in order to be like everyone else. Call it what you like, it is this certainty that ‘I am different from’ and  because ‘I am missing something’ that defines who I am and once I figure out what (or where) that missing thing is, I will no longer be different from everyone else.
I suspected then, (as I now know for certain) that the thing I needed to understand was right in front of me, but not having a clue as to what it was like, the only thing to do was try to watch everything.
Watching is not exactly synonymous with living, ( lol a joke for the clarks reading this) and so I would settle for watching as I knew that the life that I thought I was in was not really the ‘real life’ that everyone else seemed to be enjoying.
Finally, the moment described above, the scene in the music store. That I would make the leap from what I observed to what I knew, what I concluded (about reality and people) was nothing less than a total frickin gift… if I had a stronger rogerian aspect, I imagine I would go on at length about inspired insight, or serendipity but I do not have that strong a rogerian aspect. If the truth is not obvious, I have a strong (barely restrained) secondary scottian aspect. But that is a whole ‘nother Post.
So as the Lady once said, ‘that’s how it began’.

OK!!  Time to close the Post, unfortunately on  sad note…as I know that most of you already know,  Robert Hegyes passed away late last week. So we will close with the theme song to his, chef-d’œuvre

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You looking for the Bonus Inset?  Right this way, yo. This is a clip from a Post written last July, very good explanation of the clark, scott roger thing!  We figured, hey this layout really needs shaking up, so lets do an overlay Title/new Content*

The Wakefield Doctrine has 3 personality type categories: clarks, scotts and rogers. You are mostly one (of these 3) but you still have the other 2 in background.
…and when we say personality types? what we mean is, “What kind of world do you walk out to every morning”?  Because this Doctrine is not about your likes and dislikes, favorite colors or foods, interests, hobbies, avocation or inspiration. It is about the nature of your reality.

Yes, you read that right. Reality. Each of the three types of personality in the Wakefield Doctrine experience a different reality. Nothing weird or earth-shakingly different. No crystals or herbs or inner vibrations required either. Just this:

  • clarks exist (in the world) as the perennial outsider. They are normal in every other respect, it’s just that they know that they don’t belong, they are not like other people. But, at the same time clarks are the quiet, creative, funny (except you have to really pay attention or you’ll miss their jokes), self-deprecating, hardworking people that are there all around you all this time;
  • scotts are so in your life (and you will get this description only if you are not a scott) but they are the natural leaders, natural salespeople, natural entertainers… you getting the theme here with this personality type? natural. scotts are the people who live life by the moment without restraint, consideration, forethought, it’s a wonder they live as long as they do
  • rogers (you know who you are, and right now you are denying it) rogers are the everyday, friendly, easy to talk to people that populate every workplace and classroom and corner bar. rogers will be the person you turn to when you have a secret and rogers will be the one you turn to when you want to learn the latest gossip, they are the engineers, the lawyers, the doctors and heart and soul of every PTA and neighborhood watch program in the world.

The Doctrine is different from all the other mainstream and respectable personality and self-improvement systems out there because we insist that it is not just you, it is the world itself that accounts for your life, it’s trials and tribulations, good times, bad times (we know you’ve had your share).
What sets us apart and the reason you should spend time here, is that the Wakefield Doctrine offers everyone a set of tools that is specifically meant for not only your personality type, but (these tools) are meant to work and be useful in the world that you are living in today!

*the ‘extra’ words in the Title today were supposed to look like they were ‘drawn’ over the original Title, you know…graffiti like   whatever

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