(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)
(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)
Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)
Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)…
…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.
Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the, ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends, thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?
I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.
… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…
(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)
So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!
(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)
Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)
(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)
Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.
If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures, (clarks, scotts and rogers), will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And, despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).
So, if this Post doesn’t get the Progenitor roger to write another comfortable and enjoyable reading Post, I don’t know what will.
For now….goodnight Slovinaaannssss!!!!!!!!!
(And a virtual shoutout to jen and kino and our other new friends from sl y’all come back now, hear?)
About clarkscottroger
Okay – took a few minutes of reading and will have to do it a couple of more times. To your last point why would we want to be one of the others – we are happy being what we are. And I think the people we are drawn to (for the most part)are of the same “kind”. Tho this Roger has been known to be drawn to the “others”. Does this make sense to anyone – and I really don’t think ROGER left the room. And who we are now was determined at the absolute beginning.
‘Tho this Roger has been known to be drawn to the “others”. Does this make sense to anyone-‘
Yes, yes it does.
There is a thing going on with this blog and the people (involved) in it. We have said that we all posess the ‘potential qualities’ of all three, which we retain that throughout our lives.
But some clarks, scotts and rogers are more of a ‘pure form’ than others. A ‘pure scott’, would if I walked up to him/her and started to explain the Doctrine, would listen (for a fairly short time) then shake their head (in that quizzico-comical way that dogs do) and run off.
A fairly roundabout way of saying that those of us here at this blog have the capacity to ‘see beyond’ our own forms. I am as surprised as anyone how rare this quality is, but and especially among rogers, the willingness to imagine that there are worlds co-existing with your own is not that common. My compliments on this point.
Now your question about when we become (clarks, scotts or rogers), that will be a very interesting discussion. And a fairly long one, exceeding the scope of this Reply.
I will say that we become who we are after birth but before 5 years old. I will add that which we become is a function of both nature and nurture.
(to be continued…)
(To MJM) I also believe what you say makes sense. The only thing I can think of at the moment however in response to your words is: scotts we know will come and go but rogers are the ebb and flow.
[sure, you can quote me on that:)]
Wow! Robin Trower! It has been 30+ years (always weird to realize how long ago we “were”). Brings back many memories (and “they” said that smoking pot was hazardous to your memory.) Anybody out there remember the British band “Curved Air”? But I digress…
First of all I’d like to say Bravo! What an excellent post. Speaks to my core. Throughout my life I’ve known a lot of people. But knowing a lot of people and having good friends are two different things. So, being a loner and marching to my own drum as it were, I have a handful of people who I can say, to a point, have been and are influential. That is to say, they emote more of a reaction than anyone else. They will always be true friends who care about my welfare as I do about theirs. And of course there is family and an entire spectrum of possibilities. But that’s an entire other book(s). So, without hashing it out, I will simplify. Think about this: perhaps it is not the influence of other people but rather the way we react to that so-called influence that shapes who we are and who we have become.
‘…perhaps it is not the influence of other people but rather the way we react to that so-called influence that shapes who we are and who we have become…’
Current thinking agrees with your statement on one level. We are all responsible for how we feel, no one can ‘make’/force us to experience an emotion. Emotion is a personal, internal process like your damn blood pressure. But like bp, most people choose to think, ‘you are making me mad/glad/sad/excited/depressed.
That is simply not (necessarily) true. But then, part of this thing of ours forces us to recognise and accept that everyone lives in a slightly (and sometimes not so slightly) different world. And the only important thing to knowing this is (for us) to be able to accept that certain things may be ‘true’ for one person, even though we know that it is not necessarily true. (Run-on alert!!Warning!! Remain calm…allow your eyes to drift slowly and calmly to the bottom of this page…)
..dit
…dit
…dit
(there, better)
Consider that you ‘select’ everyone around you on the basis of a set of expectations that you may not be fully aware of…(to be continued.)
I appreciate your “sage”, if not philosophical, comments. They always allow for new consideration and perspective with regards to what (I) deem to be “reasonable” from another’s point of view. And is that not the entire point? It is the reason I started my endeavor into the world of “The …Doctrine.”