Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
(So …we all good with the realness of your personal reality? …the reality of the other person’s worldview?) We’re spending a lot of time on this because, when we get to the part about using the Doctrine in influencing/helping/understanding/impressing/scoring-big-time with another person, it will be your acceptance of the very real difference (between) what the world is for you and what it is for the other person, that will carry the day.
Speaking of trying to change/improve/enhance/fuckin-stop-making-the-same-mistake-over-and-over-again!, lets take a look at a new concept we’re trying out:
Personal Limiting Condition (PLC), a term for the mechanism inherent in all of our lives, that contrives to limit change. (By change we mean anything that we feel we could or should do differently, anything that we believe will, a) improve our lives or 2) decrease our unhappiness (with our lot in life). Lets say you, (a clark for the purposes of keeping this discussion somewhat credible) decide, ‘I need to get into shape’ (or) ‘I need to apply myself more and do better at my job’. Fine. (Being a clark), we will think a lot about how we should attempt to do this thing, what kind of schedule, necessary equipment and will devote a significant amount of time imagining how great it will be to finally…. whatever you anticipate the ‘new you’ look(ing)/act(ing)/feel(ing) like.
The first day of the jogging program/be serious and ‘on the ball’ at work, goes great! It didn’t hurt too much/it wasn’t too embarrassing. The second day of the jogging/’someone on the move’ at place of employment: hey a little sore, but better shape than you thought (hope it doesn’t take too long)/people seem to be looking at you funny, but the boss seems impressed… Day Three: this is boring/I’m so far behind everyone else…I’ll show them, I’ve got to give 143%/ fine!! I got my regular day’s work done (not that many errors) and the boss seems to be busy with other things…I am so far behind in life, big rewards require big risks!! … until: you run as fast as you know you should be able to run (and something gets fucked up) or you suddenly have the best idea ever for a book (or starting a band) or maybe sending out resumes, cause your cousins sister-in-law is in the HR Department of a big corporation and everyone knows you should be in…
These last, they are the Personal Limiting Conditions.
The power of PLCs is that they are quite real. You don’t have to give up jogging to not be able to get into shape, you can get hurt. You don’t have to quit your job because you know that you’re in a dead-end mode, you have so many other potential possibilities (yeah, zoe, I know lol).
These are real events. We all encounter them. Doesn’t mean that we are not capable of avoiding them. What it does mean is that, as clarks, we should recognize that this kind of thing happens to scotts and rogers (and other clarks), therefore it does not constitute proof of the unchange-ability of your life.
That’s it for now. for the new(er) Readers… and Jak, here:
(from May of last year, a portion of a Post (in part) Titled, ‘want to know the most dangerous, corrosive word used by a clark?)
It’s an innocent enough word. More than innocent, this word is often considered to be one of positive meaning and intent, a hopeful word, an optimistic word. But as a loan shark is to your local bank, the price of the loan is always higher than the value secured.
The word is ‘maybe’.
In the hands (or on the tongues) of clarks, the word is meant well. “It is a good job, maybe I’ll get it“. Perhaps because, when clarks look at the world we see people and institutions, groups and family members who, while certainly not intending us harm, (they all) clearly know something that we don’t know. “Maybe I don’t want to be a doctor, maybe I really want to find my own way”. The words we use when describing the world we find ourselves in, are picked with the hope of blending in, looking to be a member or, one of the guys/one of the girls. “I think I should ask her out, maybe I’ll wait until a better time” “How many times do we have to discuss this, maybe next time you’ll listen to me”Not really sure what it was that struck me about the use of the word ‘maybe’, it just seems that it has a certain resonance when employed by clarks. It is a word that lets us ‘commit without committing’, a word designed to insulate us from disappointment. clarks fear disappointment almost as much as we fear fear. More in a way. Fear can be run from. Disappointment is a sentence of reduced possibility. And if clarks are anything, we are people who believe that having possibilities is the difference between a possibly happy life and a life where we still have options. In a sense, as long as we have the possibility (of something) there is hope. Maybe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWnBD6n9j74
* my favorite line from ‘Back to the Future’ when Crispin Glover goes up to Lea Thompson and says, “I’m George, George McFly, I’m your density”
About clarkscottroger
frist!!!
frist! (it is)
yep. I was saying “commitment” right up until you said maybe, That is a killer of a word, If you can commit, you can do whatever you want which is within the boundaries of your reality, If you throw in a maybe, it isn’t going to happen,
jeh
Maybe is a HUGE word, bigger (or smaller?) than the sum of it’s 5 letters.
I love the line from the first Pee Wee Herman movie [I’m a grownup!] where Simone is telling a story and she says,
“….I know you’re right, but…”
and Pee Wee says,
“But what? Everyone I know has a big ‘BUT,’ let’s talk about your big ‘but.'”
[and her boyfriend is listening and freaks out hearing just that last part.]
“Disappointment is a sentence of reduced possibility.” <– that is a poem, Sir.
Joy
lol
“…therefore it does not constitute proof of the unchange-ability of your life.” See it does my heart good to see you commit to this in print as i have often felt (apparently wrongly) that there is an unspoken level of fatalism in the Doctrine.
zoe
…always with the ‘damn-I-have-to think-about-that!’ Comments! Interesting notion of the fatalistic potential/nature in the Doctrine, is it the ‘personal reality as it results in successful coping strategies, characteristically identifiable as clarks, scotts or roger?
I am appreciative of any perspectives on this thing that you (or anyone else) may have… the inferences and implications and such, perhaps there are opportunities (in the further development) of everyone’s favorite personality theory, to be found in these “I thought you meant…” things
ya know?
I think it was my recurrent inability to see the Doctrine as a coping skill beyond prediction… and prediction itself notes that people are well, predictable… why predictable? Because of the way they were raised, because of their life experiences… so therefore a sense of fatality was born in that those are unchangeable … kinda like … “this is who I am!” …which is a load of crap in my book… because it is often said with the inference of “this is who I am and I can’t change that so that is why I do certain things.”
Happy to be wrong… now you just gotta explain it to me… Im a bit slow!
hell! that’s the fun part!
(gives me something to write tomorrow)
…why, using the Doctrine, the higher the predictability of behavior has an inverse relationship to potential (within the individual) to change….
(am open to a simpler more direct question)
lol
so the more predictable someone’s behavior, the less likely they are to change? I agree with that because if they’re that predictable its a pretty fixed behavior yes?
zoe
yeah, but no! (not necessarily!) lol
the ‘old way’ of perceiving behavior in others would (to express as a roger might) be too arithmetic, the Doctrine is more like algebra*! It is not a long list of responses or a frequency of (a certain) response that allows us to ‘predict’ behavior in a person, it is an understanding of (that) person’s relationship (to the world and among themselves) that powers our understanding.
having said that, this is not to say that a person’s range of choices is any the less repetitious and therefore likely to be repeated and, of course, resistant to change…
*totally sincere warning!…I do not, I repeat, do not know anything about math (I mean, do I look like a roger?!!) but the words above are sticking together, so what the hell, ya know?
So…I keep doing this – great post, but what I’m going to say…is not relevant, lol My director today wanted to give me a book: “conflict resolution” or something to that effect.
She was saying “you’re a nice person and I know you’re averse to conflict. This will give you confidence.”
All at once I was fantasizing about running my own school, perhaps, one day but simultaneously TERRIFIED that I’d have to hire and fire people, deal with irate parents, and then “flip the switch” and be calm and present enough to conduct a meeting and give hugs to children who need them.
Is that too tall a task for a clark? Inquiring minds want to know.
A part of me says, yes, it is: because we’re so freakin’ sensitive and subject to undue stress in confrontational situations. On the other hand, if we as clarks can control our fears and emotions, we could actually learn to lead – and be really good at it. :P
Cyndi
sure we clarks are averse to conflict… wherever we feel like we will be identified as the Outsider…. however that is not the same thing as being incapable of dealing with conflict or even, not equipped to prevail in an adversarial situation… we are very that, it is simply a matter of the situation: your friends or family (including quadrupeds) are threatened? my money is on the clark lol it is a matter of what is important to (the clark)… unfortunately (and the reason we are seen as ‘weak’ in terms of adversarial situations) is that if it is ‘just us’ then we tend not to response as strongly as we might, or, we’re not quite paying attention (to the developing conflict).
….we have a scott (potential) which is not to say that we have to ‘turn into scotts’, rather we need to see the relationship that is intrinsically bound to this, our more toothy side, in order to be effective… more in today’s Post.
Maybe.
Maybe what I asked is actually VERY relevant to what you said. :P