Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
(ed.note: the above vid was picked for a Post topic that has since been discarded, still works, no?)
hey! Readers between the ages of 30 to 40 …quick!! what performers are the 18 to 20 year olds in college listening to right now, today? …don’t laugh, ’41 to 60 y.o.s what are the names of the three highest drawing live music acts that will bring out the 13 to 15 years old set? ok, good, …don’t get too confident! golf fans!!! yeah, you!! who is the current top seed male tennis player? (hell, lets make it easy on the golf fans… hey! golfers!!! who recently deposed the (previous) top player on the LPGA? …no, I didn’t think so.)
People sometimes have difficulty ‘getting’ the Wakefield Doctrine and the leading reason for this is the concept of worldview (aka personal reality). The Doctrine is predicated on the notion that we all live in a reality that is personal. The ‘personality types’ of the Wakefield Doctrine are simply markers for the (characteristic) worldview that a given person grows up, develops and lives their lives in, day in and day out. Rather than ask you, the Reader, a series of questions and then seeing what category you fit in, the Wakefield Doctrine would have you try to infer how a person is ‘relating themself to the world around them. If you can do that, then you will know more about that person than they know about themselves. And the way we get to the point of being able to correctly infer the worldview of a person is by a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the three worldviews:
- the reality of the Outsider that results in a clarklike personality person, (…sitting invisibly next to you through 4 years of high school, dreaming of the chance of being normal and you expect him to believe that washing your hair is the only reason you can’t go to a fuckin football game… or giving the freshman rogers their first look at MC Escher and Maxfield Parrish prints only to be left sitting there on the single bed with the macramé wall hangings and the ‘hang in there, baby’ poster taped to the cinderblock wall as he just about runs out of your dorm room because his girlfriend from high school decided she would entertain a further apology )
- the life of the Predator, who survives growing up in a world of Predator and Prey simply is that person (male or female… yay!! for the female…woohooo!! scottian women…. the stiletto shoes industry bows before your plunging neckline…. and male scotts?? hell, how else was I ever expecting to end up in the Principals office/local police station/soldout concert in Boston with 3 dollars in gas and 40 minutes to get there?!?! of the three personality types, who better knows that life is all about today?)
- the orderly, predictable, quantifiable and there-is-a-Right-way-to-do-things world of the Herd Member, rogers to the right of you and rogers to the left of you, they are all around, always, simply because the roger lives in the center of the herd….which herd? does not matter… why are they of the herd? didn’t you hear me? they are in the center of the herd, with rogers to the left and rogers to the right…what more do you need to know? male or female, they are there, wherever you go, unless you are stranded on a desert island and, you start to think, ‘well, I’m here alone stranded on a desert island, so I guess there are no rogers around’ and then you realize you are talking to a decorated coconut….and you are not alone)
ok…out of time today. Molly’s Rule? go ask her… here’s her Facebook page (she’s a friend of the Doctrine and so, probably won’t have you blocked for stalking her…but you never know, better go ahead and tell her the Doctrine sent ya)
Don’t forget!!! tomorrow is Guest Post Thursday’s Weekly Once a Week Guest Post….Thursday rogers!
*once we were talking about writing on one of the Saturday Night Drive calls…and I was asking the same old question: how to better get the Doctrine across to the Readers, and Molly, who knows her way around story writing said, ‘you don’t need to give them every possible fact or information, assume they are intelligent enough to get it and if they need more information, they can ask‘ (or words to that effect). I try to keep the Rule in mind, and sometimes even manage to apply it.
I keep a rather lengthy quote from “Alice in Wonderland” in my desk. It basically says I am gonna assume youre intelligent enough to make your own decisions and opinions but that is where my assumptions end. I expect that if you need to know something or my assistance in some way that as an intelligent person you will ask or seek out as necessary.
frist!
I cut out a whole piece of my genius!: LOL!
basically I make no assumptions about people (if I stay true to that) and take people at face value, and expect that they will take care of themselves instead of expecting me to meet their needs…
What can I say? The old worldview perspective. :)
I’m going through this right now, though: I really like everyone I work with, but egads…I’m the clark and two others are rogers and the director is an extroverted clark – yes, she really does love people. :)
I love people, too, but I love them in a way that I can watch them. Like, on TV. :P
Cyndi
lol*
* laugh of admiration for the word wrangling that produced:
“I love people, too, but I love them in a way that I can watch them. Like, on TV.” damn, I would like to have thought of that!
You make me laugh Cyndi! I agree with Clark. Good line:)
That should make for an interesting workplace 2 rogers and 2 clarks…..until a scott shows up LOL