Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
(I normally would spend a lot of time here,at the top of the Post, trying to avert misunderstandings on the part of Readers for the following, by pre-explaining and/or qualifying statement that I think might be mis…somethinged. But, today no. Not this time).
clarks mean well. clarks try so very hard to: do well, to live up to their potential, to not let their parents (and families down), to be good students, to not disappoint, to learn and be like others, earn a good living and support their families, to not be too distant and be the person that their spouse deserves, to learn how to act like others and not be so strange, (clarks) want to be accepted and will work and try without reward or reinforcement, towards this goal, needing only to not feel that they are being looked at and laughed at for being that ‘strange one’.
Had an interesting experience/reaction today. I often, when in a situation that carries the threat of un-wanted attention or un-earned rewards, find ways to sabotage myself. How I sabotage myself varies and is so innate that, in some circumstances, you would think I was doing it to myself on purpose! (lol*) In any event, for reasons unclear to me, on this particular morning, I got mad at this self-sabotage. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “…don’t you mean, clark, that you were getting mad at yourself”
Only at first.
And then, I was angry only just enough to disrupt the cycle, (which is often, but not always, possible to do). But that is not what prompts me to write this Post. What prompts me to write this Post is that shortly after this occurrence , as I continued to drive along in my car, I thought about my living with this kind of thing. And, then I thought of the/a young(er) clark, experiencing something that while clearly a self-induced ….’thing’, and despite knowing that it is/it was, all in my mind, (it) still happens.
…and a surprisingly strong feeling of sadness came over me.
not for myself, driving along in my German luxury car, working in a business that is challenging, enjoyable and rewarding, but for that clark that I was. and, (being in possession of the Wakefield Doctrine), for all the other clarks out there who have a similar experience. It really was quite a remarkable 30 minutes or so (see? I’m back to normal…I described it as remarkable).
As I sat behind the wheel, letting this emotion have it’s way, I thought ‘how un-necessary’. In the special mental/emotional shorthand we all have, I knew that somehow this self-sabotage was directly a result/consequence/offshoot of my efforts to learn my way out of being ‘the Outsider’. and, while I do not, for a second, devalue the efforts that I have put towards this end, (as does every clark, everywhere to one degree or another), I felt sad that I could not somehow reach back to my younger self and say, ‘don’t worry, even though being an Outsider is not necessarily your first choice, you are doing good work and you can feel proud of the effort, independent of whether anyone else in the world acknowledges it. you are a good and sufficient person’
…this Wakefield Doctrine, man!
(oddly enough, I was talking to Denise last night about how the Doctrine offers so many different ways to aid in the effort to self-improve ourselves, and that I have not even begun to scratch the surface, in these Posts.)
I debated with myself whether adding a favorite music vid, (thinking, ‘Werewolves of London’) would be too much of distraction from what I wrote, a typical clarklike effort to ‘hedge my bet with the world’… as much as the ‘smile of a clark‘ which we all recognize, the pressing of the lips together, a glance out of the corner of our eyes, all to make sure we aren’t smiling where we are not welcome.
…and I decided that it was.
* lol: ‘laugh out loud’ I am told that use of this…expression marks me as out of: date/touch/cool/current blog writing practices. too bad)
About clarkscottroger
I better be damned FRIST today! In confidence that I am, I will remain in this comment until completed. If someone sneaks in like they did yesterday over at Zoe’s house (yeah, Lizzi, it was you taking my FRIST while I attempted to post said comment)
I must be to work bright and if not early, at least on time. So short this will be.
clarks. fucking clarks. thank god for…clarks. to help the other clarks. S’all I have time for cuz I can’t be late.
Thanks for this post Clark. If nothing more than a reminder to my own self and surely for the “baby ones” – the younger clarks who, whether they know it or not, have right here, a very valuable tool. There’s no greater “selling” tool than the personal testimony/experience, eh?
and the Monday morning Frist goes to the clark in the front row!
lol yeah… even if, on occasion, they chase the mailman or Mrs. Brown’s cat… our scottian friends are fearsome allies and aggressive advocates and if they sometimes get a little too rambunctious… well, goes with the worldview, ya know?
Bazinga, Denise!
But no frist here today.
Glad to read this, and always interested to learn of the wanderings of your mind.
If I should be considered a ‘baby clark’ then I guess, thanks, because I need to learn that (not so much for the specific intent of making my own life easier rightnow, though admittedly that’s a side effect) in order to NOT look back at my way of living now and feel like I wasted too much energy on being…me.
very nicely put… all of us clarks around this here Doctrine here know exactly what you mean.
(extraneous note to totally new Readers: (part of what) Lizzi is saying, is that there is much to what we clarks do that is wasteful (in the overall view of our lives and (our) efforts to live it), however, the ‘wasted energy’ part (of our efforts) is very difficult to identify by anyone other than a clark
“…because I need to learn that (not so much for the specific intent of making my own life easier right now, though admittedly that’s a side effect)…”
Right there! What’s wrong with making your life easier right now? Directly, for that purpose. NOT simply as a side effect of a thing you do. Unless caffeine has yet to kick in, it is the small things like this that we clarks “miss”. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make life “easier”.
Taking care of things now, in the present, is what will assist in future retrospective, critical, self-analysis. And only that! my friend, can be understood by a clark. LOL
Who said being a clark was easy?! But it can be done! *she says with sarcasm dripping from her keyboard*. Life for clarks is a huge balancing act. It is a manipulation of mind and body. It is the search for, finding of, balance. It is the acceptance of self, it is the taking for self, it is the abandonment of fear. It never ceases. The desire to be better, do better, fix, help and otherwise make perfect.
….blah, blah, blah and blah. Can I get a “blah”? *Fred H. music in background*
P.S. the inclination of a clark’s desire to “help” others…often misdirected. It should be directed to self. clarks do not have to be the caregivers for the werld.
Ah but we never think we’re worth it. So perhaps we are all meant to take care of each other. In this, at least, I think clarks are the least selfish of the three.
Lizzi
I totally agree… (I sometimes have said, ‘psychotically un-selfish’)… but the interesting thing is that we (clarks) are the sole source of reliable insight (to another clark)…that being said, while scotts (and even rogers) are heard as being more authoritative in many cases…and that is not un-true…for their worldviews. and…and I will go so far as to say, scotts and rogers are good sources for clarks to see how life could/should/hopefully-has-elements of… but to know what good and fun and exciting things that life holds the potential for is only half the battle for clarks…
we clarks benefit from having someone help us ‘sneak up on ourselves’…. self-improvementally-speaking hell we all know what we think we want/need/deserve out of life… the strategy involved in bringing this to be is the challenge.
but that’s where other clarks come in…. we are in the early stages of developing this aspect of the Doctrine, I will however offer this: by knowing you…and zoe and Denise and Cyndi and all the other clarks I witness change within another clark… that is the key to my own efforts….
I’m torn, because I find that (especially the wisdom gleaned from other clarks about how in two weeks, I’ll be fourteen days past this) is HUGELY helpful when Im in a clark-dark, and yet there’s something supremely comforting about a scott who just *cannot* see it, and who has such a clear, straightforward view of it all. And that helps too, so yes – it’s aspirational to be around them. And a comfort to be around clarks.
Lizzi
and you know what that is? (the thing about scotts?) it is the opposite of clarks, it is certainty
and this is truly the classic separate but equal in value… not only are scotts the dynamic admired leaders that they tend to be (because of this certain certainty) but it is the energy of action…we are draw to it (not because we cannot be like that, rather because we have within that ‘drive to action’ but it is subsumed in our worldview…still it resonates and we are drawn to it. Just as we are drawn to rogers for their emotional content, something we have within but not expressed and so it appears very attractive.
what we have, for each other, is the subversive knowledge that we can slip the bonds of our own Outsider-nature… I see you survive the dark, I hear about Denise going in and coming out, maybe with a new little insight, watch as Cyndi does things that I cannot (at present) do, and I know she is in the same reality that I am and I listen to tales of enduring and fighting back from zoe and I am better for it.
that’s why the Doctrine is so cool, it holds that there are three realities that we are heir to and if we can make the jump in our imagination (and not insist that everyone around us just doesn’t understand, that’s why they’re different) we can do so much with this thing of ours.
YES!!! :)
Well I’m SECRUND. LOL
You know, after living the interestingness of the last two years, I’ve become a little more hardened to negative comments. I’m falling in more of the “I a’int got time for that s8$t” – lol. This by no means implies I am immune (dang I wish I could adopt the scottian mindset in this regard), but that I’m quicker to recover.
In this business, the negative nellies will come. And sometimes they even seem to buzz and fly in your circles more than you would EVER like them to, but it’s a good exercise in saying, “well, she didn’t know what she had” or “it’s his loss.”
And you drive a German luxury car you say? Dang! I really, REALLY want an ’85 diesel four-door Mercedes. :D
“..quicker to recover”
there is so much to that simple statement. at least to me. the speed of recovery is the main thing, but the really important thing (for me) is to recognize the ‘fact of recovery’ and the more the emphasis is on the amount of time, the less it is on the ‘importance/validity/judgement whatever that it is that happens to us. The more I hear things like this, from other clarks, the more I move from that place where the presumption of deserving it is the only force and I can see that there are others experiencing the very same thing!
Clark, I would venture to say (with my secondary exposed) that this was quite moving. When I see children in my practice rarely are they not Clarks ( sure ya get the aggressive other types but usually its a fitting in problem if they arent mandated by the court to see me)… anyway striving to get this point across to them is really the primary objective. Nicely stated! Thank you! L/Z
oh yeah, I never used LOL until I met you and now you say its outdated? eff them!
thank you it must be wonderful/awful to see the young clarks …being young clarks… but you know (about what they are going through) though it must be difficult on the limited time you have with them, they are fortunate to have you waving from across the abyss.
ok. I had better be frist next because I want to discuss this wild worldview stuff asap!
jeahny! :)
and HI! everyone! cu laters.
got stuff to do…or the way it is looking, maybe not!
whatever! :) <– trying to communicate with you guys from other worldviews,
So how DOES one communicate w you these days? Got a new email yet?
Hi. I just the chance to read what you wrote,
As I have already done my crying (so far!) today, I didn’t have to cry or I would have,
Indeed it was purely honest, And so finely attuned to your point it was very beautiful.
I think that this was a fully realized expression of your feelings, As well it helps others experiencing things your way specifically,, Clark guy,the way I see it, you have just finished your book –even if you haven’t written a page,
To me, an example of this would be you in any public place successful author!
Hooray. As far as I can see (and this is coming from “a person who has read a lot of books”).
Hi five to your coolness at being so accomplished at your day job you own a German car! I bet it is a pretty color! I know a solid status symbol when I see or read about one, I know I cannot live like you do in your head but really we all are different anyway.
You just caught a moment and wrote about it so well it is magnificent,
I bet we all can empathize… just enough… to be inspired !
On the playing fields fields you just were a whole bunch of teams at one time. Your teams all won.
Epic!!! I don’t even use that word.
Great post , dear Clark! You are a writer. Go and continue, You have finished what you set out to do and now you have the title. Writer. Author. Literary person. Proud contributor to the world of writing, You got it all, You always did,but you let go enough to lose the bit of control and gain the faith that you would be understood without worrying or caring what we think –can I get a “damn, clark!”
I say “damn” !!!
Yes!
:)
jean :
Jean
Thank you for that… I am learning that all I have to do, sometimes, is not worry about understanding or accepting or even knowing how (another person) knows something about myself that I do not recognize …which, being a clark is no mean feat!
clark
My pants are on fire because here I am. Z/L sent me with her post.
What you wrote was just plain old wonderful, and you can go read my thoughts in more detail over at Z/L’s, as I imagine you will. As much as you drive frickin’ completely bonkers at times with your Doctrine and all (oh, did I just say that?) there are these moments when you write something that makes me love you and identify with you and feel like there is some unstated connection between us (even if you don’t feel it–that’s cool), and this time you did it.
That last line, though, made my think of my sister in that pic you mentioned on my post. I was wondering what made you draw that conclusion, but I think it must be the smile (at least in part). I do think she’s Clarky. She’s a therapist, like one of our mutual friends, and I think you don’t go into that kind of field (or exhibit an interest in it (as you do)) without being Clarky (would you agree?). But to explain the Scott part–she’s a performer. She is hilarious. From the time she was little bitty, if she wasn’t part of the conversation, she’s shout nonsense words and perform a dance. The same when she was being scolded (and her scolder would give up, laughing). That’s a Scott, right?
Finally, you sound a little down the mouth, which isn’t necessarily a bad things in small doses, or in unusual thing, but I do hope it was a small dose and all.
very good ‘dot connecting’! one of the benefits I derive from writing this blog (in general) and reading Comments (specifically) is that I get to see ‘the same thing’ from other perspectives. the key concept (underlying the Doctrine) is the idea that maybe we all live in personal realities and maybe the very same situation that I experience is an actual different experience for another person! (no, sorry nothing too weird…no flying asparaguseses… or talking trees… but still different)… and I mean ‘real’ personal reality, not ‘well, go ahead and ignore what she meant! it’s your loss’. Real personal reality requires us to imagine that the world from the perspective of another may very well be different
she could…remember there are secondary and tertiary aspects, like our friend Cyndi (from Ashville!) she is a clark (clearly) but she does these inspirational videos that are so good that you think, maybe she’s a scott! that’s a good example of a clarklike predominate worldview with a strong secondary scottian aspect!