Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Today’s Post:
- the simplest possible form of the Wakefield Doctrine
- a Post from the Doctrine written in 2009
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, you know something about us here at the Doctrine……look back on your life. Try to remember and recall 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 (a job title, your 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, a life that is yours and yours alone.
You know, even without the names, that you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew a few people (or a lot of people) and you spent your days…doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (often vaguely recalled) times you remember as a child and continues, an un-broken line up through and right to the present moment.Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time that you have experienced. 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 from 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’, our essential nature and character, is the same today, (as you read this Post), 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. and someone please tell roger to come back into 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…)
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 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.Which, in fact, really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).
Our ‘local weather’ is currently manifesting in one of my all time favorite forms… warm, rainy and windy…on a December day. This Post from 2009 came about just because the weather outside my window looked like this song sounded (in my head) and the words just followed from that. It was one of the first occasions of a self-triggering Post idea.
About clarkscottroger
Very deep this morning and probably a bit too deep for a mother who has been up three separate times with a teething two year old. That said I would totally enjoy taking a trip back in time, when I could actually sleep through the night, lol!! Sorry I couldn’t resist :)
@Janine
aww come on, Janine there’s nothing like a little sleep deprivation to stir the forgotten stuff up! I have always considered the benefit from the ‘really deep’ stuff to be mostly the feeling that it elicits, the more un-expected and/or un-defined, the better. This as opposed to any ‘understanding’ which is so not clarklike! ( I can make fun of clarks, being one… lol)
Thank you for the firstmorning Comment!
….and let me guess: the “clarks” are the ones most likely to quit their jobs without a safety net, hoping and expecting that while they’re trying to live out their dreams, luck will befall them and something good will happen….
no…that’s not me at all. HAHAHA.
@Cyndi
Consider yourself in (‘welcoming’) company. For reason that I am not overly sure of, this Post is one of my favorites…there is something very positive and emotional ( and this from a clark??!) about this thing…
…and there are the shoes…
Those shoes in the photo at the top of the Post, someone tell me that I am not the only one who ‘sees’ two engaged figures (instead of sneakers)! Seriously when I aim my eyes at the image, with trying to see, I stell one figure leaning over the other, both totally non-descript but definately human… (no, I am not over-working myself! They’er there, I tell you! Plain as the shoes on your feet).
Thanks for the Commentation.
This was very thought provoking… if you noticed that I am gone for awhile it might be because I am lost in thought wondering why all these people have been in my life and what they mean to me and why I let them in… hmmmm
@Stacy
…and yet we are us, now and throughout (our lives), sometimes I think we get too distracted by the separation and not appreciating the intrinsic ‘connectiveness’ of the elements (people, places and things) that make up our lives
Thank you for the comment
Clark I really enjoyed your post today! You’re right about taking away names and places and titles….it is the time spent doing things or with people that matter the most. You’ve got my brain turning on this one today. :)
@Melanie
Thank you. Don’t know if others get the thing where, sometimes, you’re writing about something and as you write, the point you were planning to make…no worse than that! the idea that you had, the understanding itself changes as you write. In a sense, I knew more when I was done with the Post than when I started (maybe that should be ‘became aware of’ instead of ‘know’)
I agree that we have the potential for thinking in terms of personality types. I agree that I’m definitely unpredictable….I love things to be different everyday. Yet, I think lots of things influence who we are too. Necessity, for example, provides the balance to that unpredictability, so does experience…then the lists, to dos, and reminders to be mindful of the consequences of that unpredictability come up. A thought provoking post, Clark! Tell me what you think!
@Michelle
my first thought is that you have a strong secondary clarklike aspect, which accounts for the drive for novelty and new experiences. Your predominant worldview (can) remain that of the rogerian persuasion, with the overlay of the clark. I point that out because as a (predominant) clark (secondary) scott I found that this Post was one of those that we all run into that ‘write themselves’.
Granted that is way, way off the point, but that is the point.clarks have a need for ‘un-definededness’,
But your rogerian worldview maintains that paramount value is to be found in continuity…not just that tradition, routines history.
…and all of that points back to the unique perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine which says that we all have the potential and capacity to experience the world through any of the three, how cool is that?
@ clark this last time – way cool.
A refreshing way for getting it. Removes all of the smoke and leaves the mind clear to comprehend *who* we are.
@Jennifer
yeah, though clarks have a soft-spot for complicating things, sometimes it just makes sense without a big explanation.