Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
(If you are a clark*)…have you ever had a day when, just before the mid-point of the (weekday) morning, you come to the realization that you are, for all intents and purposes, invisible? Nothing cool, no walking into the Girls Locker Room or standing behind the Teacher at the front of the room, not even getting right next to that clot of rogers in the break room, close enough to be able to hear who said what, no none of that…just invisible, as in (socially) insubstantial, inter-personalistically transparent. A faint voice with no determinable origin.
(If you are a clark*)… while sometimes this state is fun, have you ever had the realization that, as little things go wrong in your day, (they are little things, if only for the fact that you accept that they happen to ‘everyone’), as you attempt to correct (these mistakes), mollify (their irritation), ameliorate (the bad feelings and reactions that begin to drift in, like an early morning fog), that (not only are you invisible and (semi)-insubstantial), it is this state-of-being, that is creating the conditions in your day and (despite your efforts to find this all amusing and interesting and so clarklike), the negativity shows no signs of letting up?
(If you are a clark*)… there is a feeling within, a sense of contributing and creating your own dis: -location/-satisfaction/-ease/-approval, that seems to grow with each half-hearted and doomed-from-the-start effort to get the day back on the right track. It is very akin to the saying, ‘they just can’t seem to get out of their own way’… only with the added element of your knowing that it is you who can’t seem to stop mumbling and stumbling because you are not picking up your feet when you walk.
(If you are a clark*)…there is an element of emotion underlying all of this. It is truly difficult to get your head around/put in words. And yet, there is a sense of ownership and with that comes a certain defiance that you realize, if it were not trapped within, held in check by your outsider-nature, you would be raising some 6 kinds of hell. but, you don’t. You endure, waiting for the more limiting (and damaging) parts of this feeling-state to pass, resolved to make it different next time.
(If you are a scott*) … thank you, but the appearance of disability and discomfort, while real, is no where near as you might imagine. Having no ‘fight-flight’ instinct, we tend to endure and bounce back…without accepting the rewards of surviving the battle.
(If you are a roger*)… no, nothing like that. Unless heir to a secondary clarklike aspect, there is not a chance in the world of your identifying with this, although the perspective that prevents your identification is of limitless value to us. thanks
You, the Reader, are in possession of the potential to experience the world in all three ways: the Outsider way, the Predator style and manner of the Herd Member. However, you are in only one of these three, (your predominate worldview), and it is the nature and character of your predominate worldview that is what stands between you and identifying with the other two.
* a person who grows up in the personal reality referred to as that of the Outsider, forever seeing the world around them as being, ‘…out there’. (hell, I just gave myself away with that ‘seeing the world around them’, didn’t I? lol)
* a person who grows up and develops their social skills and coping strategies in a context where the world is one of predator and prey, the here and now is pretty much all that matters, the day involves waking and eating providing for the pack and surviving
* those who find themselves in a connected world at a very early age. not ‘connected’ in the sense of ‘joined’, ‘connected’ in the sense of a part of larger group, governed by abstract Rules and Values that give purpose to the associations that their everyday world is comprised of.
About clarkscottroger
OK, I feel like this Clark-ish-ness comes with a whole lot of negative self-perception. I think in my younger days that was probably true, but not so much as I get older and actually allow myself to acknowledge that I am not, in fact, invisible, no matter what may appear to be true otherwise.
Hmm. Maybe I just answered my own question there. But it seems that the Clark is by nature a negative and sad little being and I would not say that is generally true in my case. So.
What? Did I get a frist here?
Lisa
totally! …almost, well, yeah, sort of
(lol)
yes! FRIST it is, Lisa!
would you like the most difficult perspective (inherent in the Wakefield Doctrine), to add-to/ enhance your understanding of our little personality theory?
The most difficult perspective?
“would you like the most difficult perspective (inherent in the Wakefield Doctrine), to add-to/ enhance your understanding of our little personality theory?”
Um…yeah. Presented a potential challenge, I must always accept. Lay it on me…
the ‘most difficult perspective of the Doctrine’ is also the most valuable. To know that ‘the other person’ may be experiencing the same event differently. (or to put it another way, a way with more practical use), everything that happens to us, common experiences such as shopping for groceries, getting a divorce, finding a job, raising a child to individual interactions such as paying for gas at the 7/11 or visiting the doctor for the results of a biopsy, and sitting through a child’s music recital are said (in the context of the Wakefield Doctrine) to ‘manifest’ in terms of the (individual’s) personal reality, their worldview.
The goal that we set forth in the Doctrine is to try to understand how the other person is experiencing the world around them. Understanding the character and nature of the three worldviews is the start, putting ourselves in their shoes is the finish.
The problem, what makes this such difficult perspective is that what something you are engaged in, presents to me differently than it does to you. The gulf between the worldviews is immense, but not un-bridgeable.
…. I should write a post about this.
remember we are all trying to infer how the other person relates themselves to the world around them, correctly appreciate this and you will know more about them, than they know about themselves.
Aaannndd now my head hurts.
I totally felt ignored on my first day back at work after our U.S. trip. Turned out my boss wasn’t ignoring me on purpose, she had just assumed that I would still be on vacation that day and therefore completely blanked out my presence until it sunk in a couple of hours later :-) It was definitely a weird feeling, kept asking my colleague if something had happened that my boss was mad at me..
Stephanie
Yeah, weird is a good word for it! Your second point is also very insightful, (in the spirit of the Wakefield Doctrine as-a-tool-for-self-developing-oneself), when the people around us act and respond (to us) in a way that is inconsistent with what we would expect, it is much more productive to have an alternative explanation…even a weird one! lol The insight of the Doctrine, that we live in personal realities, is mostly concerned with not falling prey to reactions (and interactions) that seem to clash with our expectations.
Did you do a font change or something? I know…pressing and intelligent commentating as usual.
actually…I’m glad you mentioned that. there’s been something going on with the font (at times looking all italian and other times a slightly-different-but-the-same look)
can you be more specific?
…yes most difficult perspective that what I do is one thing, what Christine perceives might very well be what can be said to be a different thing… (sort of a function of the statement: the Wakefield Doctrine is concerned with the effort to understand how a person is relating themselves to the world around them. and so, in semi-Heisenbergian fashion what we observe other people doing is, in fact, influenced by our own worldview.
ya know?
This is what you were referring to above?
Do you mean More specific regarding the font? Or was that a non-sequiter
actually more specific in what is striking you as different. I’m not sure what is different about the blog (lol) but I got a feeling some small changes are/have occurred.
(the rest of my comment was the normal non-sequitorian rhetoric… like Vince Lombardi used to say, ‘non-sequiter never quit(er)… ‘ or something like that
so the rest of your comment was what I understood…go figure.
re the site:
The main title is the same on the daily page and homepage. But the daily entry page is all italics when it never was. Funny though is that while commenting the type is standard but after hitting enter it changes to itlalics. also comments for me anyhow are getting lost a lot more. twice on this one. The homepage is essentially unchanged…no funny business…even your subtitles on the entry page are italicized.
That is a huge asset to knowing and understanding the Doctrine. Accepting that a situation or conversation means something different to someone else as a result of their worldview, ie how they relate themselves to the world, relieves a whole lot of pressure AND gives you a huge advantage.
As to clarks and “invisibility” – I wonder that it is not simply having a bad day and manifesting our own feelings of being the outsider. Kind of like a self fulfilling prophesy. When other people have a bad day, they’re often grumpy and/or unpleasant, clarks just go “invisible”:)