Month: November 2013 | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 3 Month: November 2013 | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 3

Monday Post the Wakefield Doctrine …as a matter of fact, we do consider this a perfect system for helping understand stuff!

November 18, 2013 By

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

earth-perfect

We claim the Wakefield Doctrine is a ‘perfect’ system for self-improvement and understanding the behavior of the people in our lives for 2  very simple reasons:

  1. the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the idea that we all live in one of three characteristic worldviews (aka personal realities)
  2. for something to have significance, it must exist within your worldview or it simply will not register
  3. (because of this) anything we say here, in this blog or from the perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine will simply be noise if the first two conditions do not apply.

There you go.

So rather than waste a lot of time trying to sell you on why you should believe any of this, which, if you don’t know by this point why it is (a waste of time) then just keep reading…a little more, thats it!  …you are getting confused…disinterested…bored//////

OK  we’ve gotten rid of the distractions. Lets give you something useful on this Monday morning.

Below is a Comment/Reply from yesterday’s Post. The Post itself is not critical to getting something from the exchange, being a clark is. The thing we say about the Wakefield Doctrine being a perfect system for helping us understand ourselves and the people in our lives? Totally serious about that. But, while my first instinct is to put the example (of the Comment) up here in your face, lets leave it down at the bottom of the Post. It’s kinda inflammatory, insightful, heart-felt and totally useful to anyone capable of understanding it. …and that’s precisely why it’s stuck down there at the bottom of the page.

There have been two ‘drives’ pushing me as I write these Posts over the last few years: a) the need to share the benefits of the Wakefield Doctrine with as many people as possible  and 2) the fear that I lack the rhetorical skills necessary to present  the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine effectively.
I have, of late, come around to a different view.  Well, better make that one (of the two). I still want to have the Wakefield Doctrine become a household term, but will settle for total strangers being overheard in an airport terminal saying, ‘jeez what a roger‘  or  ‘stop being such a clark, you don’t need to and you have the choice’

The second drive: to explain the Wakefield Doctrine in terms that, as Malcolm once said, ‘everyone can easily understand’. For the most part, I’ve written these Posts simply because it’s been fun. At other times (especially in the first couple of years) I’ve found trying to write Posts from the scottian perspective or the rogerian frame of reference. And while these efforts increased my own understanding of the Doctrine, there has been little change in the demographic of the readership. Eventually I gave up trying to: sell to the readers/convince people to come and read the Doctrine/pine for the ‘other two worldviews’ in my Reader Cross section.

Only when I stopped trying did I see the changes, the improvements. That and the good fortune to end up ‘in the same room’ with a number of very talented clarks… (and an exceptional roger) (and….and! a couple of scotts)

So how do we get away with saying this is a perfect system?  Very simply. If the perspective that is being offered (insights, answers, suggestions for change) is something that you, the Reader, can identify with it…then it is valuable. If you can’t identify with what is being said, then  it’s harmless information or, at worse, nonsense. You won’t be exposed to bad advice here at the Wakefield Doctrine simply because we are not requiring anyone to do as we say…. the Wakefield Doctrine is  one (more) perspective on life. A very cool and amusing and scary-sometimes-in-it’s-accuracy-in-prediction, but still…just another of a thousand ways to look at the behavior of the people in our lives.

Seeing how the only people who have not already scrolled down to my little Comment reprint are the rogers who for god knows what reason are still hanging around, here it is:

Our friend Kristi  wrote a Comment last night. She was referring to the Posts that were written for the TToT, which, if you are new here is a bloghop of no small distinction. To learn more and to read the Post that she is referencing (sort of ) follow this link or this link. I will reprint her Comment (and) my Reply here:

(Kristi) I know that you’re going to get this as a Clark but part of me is so itchy about TToT. I adore it love it adore it but also sometimes feel like a braggy asshole about what I’m thankful for like “YAY look at me!” Which (as you know) is always tempting but also SO FUCKING UNcomfortable at times. Like my post today? I didn’t like that person. And it was me. And I wonder should I change it or just be thankful for what I’m thankful for! UGH!! 

(clark)…I know what you mean, (fortunately) there are some phrases that reference this state (unfortunately, as you might infer from the previous) this is a descriptive understanding, not an informative/explantive understanding.

one phrase I use (to describe what I think you are referring to) is that after I ‘exert myself among other people (non-clarks especially) ‘my head swells up and my face falls’… but there is something that happens, a kind of backlash that is either explicit, ‘hey, you’re getting pretty big for your britches, aren’t you?’ or more insidiously ‘mental nausea’ which is just feeling bad as an aftermath from going out of your comfort zone .

Frankly I’m not sure where I come down on what the hell this is coming from…it’s really unpleasant and lol all I want is time to pass…so it will fade away…nothing direct that implies I need to do something …just it needs to ‘be another time‘

that’s a clue, I think… one possibility is that it is simply our own (conscious or un-conscious/deliberate or non-deliberate) efforts to stay clarks… a way we have of keeping us in our place. It really sucks and is nearly the worst we, as clarks can feel… the worse is when we really, really get exuberant and then get a full ‘hey you know how you think you’re finally learning? how you’re pretty sure that you have overcome being such a creep? well, you haven’t…they’re laughing, just not when you’re around’

thats the worst. (but there is a tiny, fucked up, pretty damn clarklike bright side to this… we (clarks) all know what this is like…so, for me, the next time I find myself there… the voice that tells me why I deserve it won’t be so totally airtight-correct)… not much help…doesn’t get me out of that place…but it is a new thing and it changes what that experience is about.

So let us know what you think…  no, this is the damn Doctrine!  we already know what you think!  why doncha go ahead and tell us what we think!  make it interesting… lol

ya knw?

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Sunday TToT ‘coffee, Gould and grey skies’ the Wakefield Doctrine (hey, we have a docTee photo… it’s not a total loss!)

November 17, 2013 By

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

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Hey look! Another well attired life-form!*

Sunday.  Seeing how our Comment thread ended the day yesterday with the consensus being “hey! you know, weekends are different”,  I thought I should continue with that theme. (Speaking of themes, I am totally grateful for the modern technology! As I type this, I have a youtube of Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations playing on my computer. (Now, this particular music may not be to everyone’s taste  and is, in fact, the type of music I need to be in the right mood and setting to enjoy, but this is Sunday morning… coffee  grey November sky out the window.  perfect. I am…. trebly grateful (ha ha, little attempt at music humor!) ( no, I will, in fact, be claiming 3 T items!)

1) technology
2) Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations
3) Sunday Morning appropriate to the listening to of this music as I type furiously, having only 40 minutes left

…where were we?  oh yeah!  the Comment thread and the fact that ‘weekends are different’. I would add to this, Lizzi’s Comment about how she did not remember her 7-year-old self. I suspect that most of us have difficulty recovering much more than a few episodic and traumatic memories (trauma in the broadest sense of the word, i.e. not necessarily bad,  just an event that causes long-lasting memories).  Now before I get all word-tangled, trying to justify using such a loaded word as ‘trauma’,  I need to add a couple of related Grate Ites:

4) having Readers who not only leave Comments, but carry on conversations, or at very least, communicate that they have gotten something from my Post… makes all the difference in the world
5) grateful to whatever part of mymind that enjoys words for their own sake. I am especially grateful for the effect words can have, at times merely  because they are a less commonly used
6) I appreciate even more… (come on! ‘appreciating’  is like being grateful… you know sorta like tuna casserole for lunch, no one will mistake it for the tasty hot meal it was the first night, but who doesn’t like cold tuna casserole just as  much?)

so… why are weekends so clearly different from weekdays? We spent time in yesterday’s Post contrasting weekdays with weekends, mostly in terms of what the weekend isn’t, so it’s only right that we spend some time on weekends.  Let’s try this:  the weekend days are days during which we are more inclined to feel that we: are individuals, even though we have a family. We might be alone, or have a house full of family but there is something about the potential of 2 days when we are not having our waking hours dictated to us (aka the weekdays) that just seems so… invigorating.
OK this look at ‘why weekends are different’ is not going quite as well as I would like, so lets get back to Lizzi’s suggestion that childhood is not rememberable.

Ages 3 to 5  Best Memory/Worst Memory (counts as three Items):

7-7.5) being in the family car in a snowstorm, stuck on the Bourne Bridge, trying to get home after a family day shopping for Christmas (which was in about 3 days). Being stuck in a car on the Bourne Bridge may not seem like an event to engender a memory that lasts a lifetime, but the home we were trying to get to was on Martha’s Vineyard and the Ferry we were trying to get to was the last Ferry of the night.
7.5-9) lol… I’m trying here, people!   no, it was not a bad childhood, it was the childhood of a clark… what can I say?  what part of the last 24 weeks’ TToT Posts from the Wakefield Doctrine here convinced you that I am a naturally grateful person? … I’m kidding, of course. I am grateful for the gang around here participating in such an oddly satisfying activity as a weekend gratitude list… (have I thrown everyone off the trail?)

Finally! Number 10!

10) quite simply it is the photo that graces our Post today. I am grateful to Zoe for the photo. I appreciate her wit and insight in her Comments over that last weeks.  They have added to the quality of the conversation here that makes the TToT such a unique event in the blogosphere.

OK enough!

 

 

* We all know and respect the secret Wakefield Doctrine Rule about not telling people what their worldview is, but  am I the only one thinking…’scottian female, yo!’   go ahead,  someone tell the Readers why!  (lol)  it’s ok, zoe will explain to her docTee body double that nothing we say is intended as being compelling or otherwise a fait du droit, Doctrinistically speaking and such.  Speaking of zoe (or Zoe) she has a site called, ‘rewritten’  that she co-authors. It is the kind of blog that, in my humble opinion, blogs and blogging were invented to be… er  for,  they (blogs) are an expression of our natural desire to connect and blogging allows all of us to do so. Some of us have little niches, others have broad-highly-read-by-many, but the bottom line (for most of us) is that we get to connect with others in a way that is appropriate to our own styles.

and, …and! zoe also has a blog that deals in poetry.  ‘The Well Tempered Bards‘ which I have been to a number of times and enjoy…which is saying something about the work there, me being totally poetry-deaf, yet I get something from going there and reading what is there… you should too (go there, not ‘be totally poetry-deaf’).  I am glad to know zoe (and skip).

 

Ten Things of Thankful

 

 Your hosts


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TeeHeeOhT-24 the Wakefield Doctrine …it’s the weekend! (you remember those…Saturday?…Sunday? no work?!)

November 16, 2013 By

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

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It’s Saturday and it’s time for the Best Blog Hop on the internet! It’s the Ten Things of Thankful! It’s fun and it’s exciting, there are heart-warming stories and gut-wrenching life events there is even a free association corner! (some restrictions may apply! no one over the emotional age of 13 permitted in the free association corner without the express, written consent of a parent, guardian angel or blogwriter. So join Lizzi and her band of bloggerinae for this week’s episode!)

So after 5 days of the workweek, we are again here at the Saturday end of the week. Granted Saturdays no longer have the ‘day-off-do-weekend-chores’ vibe that many of us insist we felt when we were young children, it still has a certain quality, a change in the rhythm of way we try to cope with the world. The work that is demanded by school and work (and house-keeping, if you are a SAHM), while difficult and laborious, possesses the saving grace of a certain degree of predictability. We start Monday and expect the next 4 days to follow the pattern.  For the 5 days of the traditional workweek we:  buckle down to work, put in our 40 hours, get A’s, keep our nose to the grindstone, let the children watch the save stupid video time and time agin, remember why we have to study, get that promotion, go shopping and not cringe at the realization that a law degree did not obviate the need for a grocery list, suck up to that awful teacher, laugh at our supervisor’s dumb jokes, join the theatre club because it will look good on our college application, not cringe when the Manager puts his hands on our shoulder, try not to feel guilty at the joy we feel to leave the kids at home once the spouse gets back because you forgot one thing at the store...

The work week is also, oddly enough, less personal. This is strange, because, in today’s modern world, the majority of us spend most of our waking hours with the ‘not-immediate-family segment of the world’s population’. And when we are home, during the workweek, it’s all about the eat and sleep and be ready for the next workday.

So, why are weekends different? Because the weekends offer the potential of the ‘you-portion-of-life’. Doesn’t matter if you have one day or two, or (your weekend) is Tuesday and Fridays… our weekends are different. So…if I were 7 years old again and you snuck into my house on a Saturday morning to ask me what I was grateful for, then I might say:

1) I am grateful that I am able (better make that  capable of)  throwing away half of the list I just finished writing ’cause it just didn’t make sense!  (yeah.. Dyanne, I know! you don’t want to know what it is that makes me react that way.

2) I am grateful for the realization that I am in re-write mode which is not as depressing as ‘what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-write-this-week’ mode

3) Some people I know have the weekend off, like they only work Monday through Friday… damn!  I once had a job like that! I called it my ‘Ward Cleaver’ job  start at 8:30 and ended at 5:00 every week day. I think I lasted about 2 years or so… but I met Bernadine at that job so it wasn’t a total loss…I am grateful for that (meeting Bernadine, not lasting 2 years or so)

4) I am grateful to be on this item, because that is the extent of the re-write necessary as a result of a failed premise in my set up… (I was trying to do a Ten Things list from the perspective of being a 7 year old clark… nice idea, couldn’t pull it off._

5) Wait til Christine gets a load of this  (this phrase in italics was a ‘starter item’ from the first draft of this week’s list). Lately, if I’m pretending to not wait until Saturday morning to write my List, I’ll type out Items 1-10 and put something/anything on each line and then, when I come back on Saturday morning, I’m not facing a blank page.  …it’s ok though, I told Lizzi that I was doing that and she didn’t get mad.

6) the Wakefield Doctrine. well, even though it might seem like a repetitious over-simplification, I am grateful for the Doctrine because without it, I wouldn’t be here struggling to come up with a list that, while not even attempting to conform to the standards of my ‘peer group’, will be acceptable under the category: ‘that one? oh… but he means well’

7) I will say that I am grateful for my job/work. I am not producing lists like today’s because I don’t care about anything or am not grateful for the good things I have and the bad things that I don’t have in my life. Rather, I am writing this because it allows me to participate in something with normal people and…and! I get to (try) to learn: a)writing skills and 2) sharing skills

8) hey!  you want to hear something a little odd? no! seriously!  well, I should say, this item might not make sense if you are not a clark (or do not have a secondary clarklike aspect) or if I don’t tell it right…anyway. I was at the office yesterday and an agent came in who I knew to be a clark, but she knows nothing of the Wakefield Doctrine. So I said, “hey Nancy! you’ll get this… ever be, like driving down a street that you’ve driven down a million times and all of a sudden, you look and you don’t recognize where you are?” (she looked a little startled) “…but the thing is you get this weird feeling in the pit of your stomach ..just a twinge??” (and she got that look of ..recognition and a happy…almost relieved look  in her face) and she was all, “yeah! and it seems that there are times when it happens a lot and then a long time goes by and it never happens!”  I am grateful for that experience.

9) if you have a spare gratitude item, something that  a real person might submit, Hey!  K2 (the other Kristi), Joy,   Stephanie might come up with…. if you guys have any left over Items and you’re only gonna throw them away…I’ll be totally    grateful! lol)

10) weekend!  it’s work today, until about 5:30 and then at 8:00pm it will be the Wakefield Doctrine Saturday Night Drive, which is a call-in thing that we do at the Doctrine and DownSpring Cyndi usually call in…I have one of those conference call numbers (1-218-339-0422) where people can call in and enter the access number ( 512103 # ) and talk about the Doctrine. Tomorrow its the Wakefield Doctrine Video Brunch  Lizzi and Michelle and Denise and Kristi once and Zoe for a few minutes one time and even Dyanne joined us one Sunday, it’s like getting together with friends over coffee on a quiet sunlit Sunday morning… and I’m there too!

that’s it for Saturday

Ten Things of Thankful

 

 Your hosts


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“…all according to plan, exactly how we thought it would go” the Wakefield Doctrine (yeah, right!)

November 15, 2013 By

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

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So I was sitting here this morning, knowing that I need to write a Post, but unable to find the right… pitch?  tone?  hook?  (the photo?  what does that have to do with this Post? I do not have a clue.)

It started out simply enough, “hey it’s Friday! Lets do the Finish The Sentence Friday bloghop, we like doing bloghops and it’s always good for getting visitors to the D.  But, I saw today’s fragment and thought …

exactly!  I had nothin. No twist or turn or even a ‘straight answer’ for the Girls of Friday.  So, I’m thinking, ” hey!, it’s not the end of the world” ( …no such luck! ha ha! a little joke for you clarks out there), “I’ve been trying to get back to writing at least three Wakefield Doctrine Posts each week.  How hard can that be? I’ve been writing these for …well a long time in blog years.”

… (a common mis-unstanding about the ellipsis and the rogerian expression, “dit…dit…dit”  they are not synonymous!  one is the implied passing of time with nothing happening except the increasing concern over the passing of time…with nothing happening. the other is the approaching inevitability of a series of inter-related events, the initial (event) being hoped for, the subsequent event feared.   I’ll get our own Tin Man, Progenitor roger to weigh in on that…this being ‘what-the fuck-am-I-being-allowed-access-to-Readers-with-this-kind-of-confusion Friday. )

still….nothing.  then, as I was writing in my journal and rummaging through my trunk of wordtools  looking for something anything to find a focus, I came across a phrase I haven’t used in a while, “…get punched in the nose or slapped in the face today”  I know you clarklike Readers will be able to infer the intent of this somewhat odd affirmation, if by some chance you’re a roger or a scott and are shaking your head, as you no doubt are,  go ask that clark you know. (they’re right there  ready to help…god knows we’re always frickin ready to help…as long as it’s someone else.)

Still nothing!

You know what happened? The Wakefield Doctrine happened. I am struck, this morning how, despite my not noticing it, the Wakefield Doctrine and the people drawn to it are carrying it forward. I am not overly capable of describing this feeling of ‘holy shit! they get the Doctrine and they are applying it (for fun and education) in their own lives.’  Except to say:  “Very cool. Very disturbing. Very satisfying.”

as it should be.  So for today,

 

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if you’re not a clark, stop reading now! as this Post will only a) bore you or 2) annoy you the Wakefield Doctrine

November 14, 2013 By

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

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I have, from time to time over the course of the years here, set out to ‘write to’ each of the three personality types. By ‘write to’ I mean (and meant): to pick the words, shape the sentences, carve the paragraphs, sneak in the clauses that would resonate with a Reader of a specific personality type. I have set out (on these occasions) to publish a Wakefield Doctrine blog Post that would be irresistible to a roger, totally exciting to a scott and interesting to a clark. Not an unreasonable  goal, what with my understanding of the Doctrine, to ‘get inside the head’ of a Reader. Ya know?

I have not been successful.  …at least with Readers from of 2 out of 3 worldviews. So the question: is this a worthwhile ambition for one who is writing a blog that is all about a personality theory that maintains it is possible to ‘see the world as the other person experiences it’? Or is there a secret flaw to this very ambition, something about it that I am not seeing, something inherent to the premise or is it simply a function of (or lack thereof) my current skill level at this whole writing thing?

Before we continue this, knowing that there might be a roger or a scott out there reading, or, more of a legitimate concern, a new(er) Reader, let me interrupt myself and give everyone a quick overview of our little personality theory. With the assistance of our favorite glyph, Mr. Bullet Point!  (Mr. Bullet Point, aided by the sexy and faithful, Miss Parenthesis, is totally the foundation in my efforts to communicate the principles and applications of this here Doctrine here), the Wakefield Doctrine is:

  • a perspective on people and what is (correctly or otherwise) referred to as their personality type
  • a way to understand the behavior of the people in our lives, whether immediate family or distant cousins, the girl at the next cubicle or your Manager in the office with all the ‘windows’ that look over the work area
  • based on the idea that we all live our lives in what can be described as personal realities… that part of the world between our minds and the other person’s mind
  • certain that there are, among the personal realities (aka ‘worldviews’) of all of us, three characteristic worldviews, the world of the Outsider, the reality of the Predator and the life of the Herd
  • predicated on the notion that we all find ourselves in one of these three worldviews and what others call ‘personality types’ is simply a reflection of the world that we are experiencing
  • certain that while we all live our lives in one of these three worldviews (our predominant), we always retain access to the ‘other two’
  • fun… when you see the clarks and the scotts and the rogers in your world and they start acting like we describe here… a lot like we describe here, you will scream and curse us or laugh and say, “damn! wait ’til I tell everyone at the Doctrine what I saw that scott do today”!
  • useful, it will help you better understand yourself

So, back to our question, ‘should I be trying to write, based on my understanding of the Wakefield Doctrine, Posts that will appeal to the rogers and scotts and clarks, in order to attract new Readers?

In the interest of encouraging discussion, allow me to say: I enjoy what I’ve been doing and do not feel that my efforts are of less value if I do not attract ‘the other two’.  While it is obvious to everyone that my goal is to present the Wakefield Doctrine to as wide an audience as possible, my satisfaction with the results to date are founded (and grounded) in the quality and nature of the responses of Readers to date, and not the quantity. I really enjoy what I am doing, especially  the people who are making this blog way, way more than it was when I started. I feel very lucky to have (fill in one of 53 names right here!) hang out here and such.

So to get this Discussion started:

  • hey! get some Guest Post writers!!  all three too
  • hey where are the videos!!
  • well, since you asked you would do well to emphasize a view that is more than…totally clarklike
  • how about the Video Brunch and the Saturday Night Drives or that ‘radio’ thing you started to do…. huh? what about them
  • ….jump in whenever you feel like  lol

 

 

 

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