Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
1) grateful for ‘the google’. Just last night, zoe and I were on the early bird vidchat* and the topic of conversation was, (at one point), the variety of pitfalls encountered when attempting to self-improve oneself. I mentioned that sometimes the effort to change/improve can devolve into a repetitious and exhausting rehashing of old traits, beliefs and habits. The thought of ‘a struggle with oneself’ triggered a reference in my head, something relating to Greek Mythology. Barely a vague image, this memory trace was to something in one of the Greek myths (that I enjoyed as a pre-adolescent) that felt perfect as an illustration of the point I was trying to make. All I could remember of it was that it had something to do with the 7 Labors of Hercules. So I goggled: ‘the guy that Hercules held up in the air in order to kill’ cha…ching! Now, that 10 second search of the google may not have the romance of spending hours in a semi-dark library, climbing ladders to reach the books on the top shelf or trying to keep my eyes off the décolletage of the primly-dressed, but totally hot, Miss Carruthters (in-charge of the Private Collections Room), but it was pretty cool.
2) did I mention that I have a cold this weekend? I’ll take a chance with the Seven Guard Virgins and claim that as two separate items on today’s Grat List. (no, for this, Item #2, I’m grateful to Cyndi for introducing us to that daunting septet. While she was kind enough to point out that the Seven are charged with enforcing the terms of the implied contract, inherent in participation in ‘the bloghop that Lizzi built‘, our Mrs. Calhoun neglected to tell us much more about them. Other than, ‘ya don’t want to get on their bad side‘). Fortunately, zoe has stepped up and taken on the responsibility of interceding for us in matters of uncertainty in the use and application of said, BoSR. (Sort of like Judi Dench as M.)
3) I am hypo-grateful for the cold that I have, in that it is distracting. clarks, as ‘sick people’ probably have the greater capacity, (of the three), to continue with a normal routine. This is mostly due to the open-endedness of our definition of the word ‘normal’. But still, it’s not that much fun, interesting, but not really fun.
4) I am grateful for my head cold in that, as a clark, we find some of the symptoms to be interesting. You know, that odd sense that the room you just walked into is, in fact, a stage set? You know everything is real, but you would swear that you saw someone push one of the walls into place, just a split second before you could turn and look directly at it. Reality, never the giant-Rock-of-Gibralter symbol of permanence and stability that is is for scotts and rogers, becomes just a little bit more…. obviously fake, when clarks have a fever.
5) (are you sure? did I skip some subtle math-trick that everyone else knows between Item number 3 and 4? I’d swear that I’ve been typing like, 3 or 4 hours already! It can’t be only #5!!) Thank god for the Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules)
6) Since we’re seeing an increasing number of new people here, at the TToT, of late, this might be a good time talk about the Book. I was about to describe the BoSR as being sort of like… you know when you take a Mulitple Choice Test? (not a regular classroom one, more the SAT, GRE or even the MAT… the one that despite (or because of) the fact that it happens only once, the pressure to do well is all the greater?) …and how there are always a bunch of questions that you know you know, but you can’t think of the correct answer so you leave them blank? But time is running out. (Here’s an interesting insight into Testing, courtesy of the Wakefield Doctrine: clarks finish the test before anyone, but don’t want to be the first to hand in their test books, so for a clark, ‘time is running out’ at, say, 2 hours and 5 minutes into a 3 hour-allotted-time Test; rogers (whose handwriting/pencilmarks get increasingly erratic and sloppy as the time runs out, as if the more graphite they lay on the Answer Sheet, the better the odds their Answer will be judged Correct) …for rogers, time is running out from the First Minute right to the 179th minute. If you’re in the Testing Room and hear the sound of breaking pencil lead, you will know who the roger in the room is… the girl who looks panic-stricken but then smiles as she remembers that she brought 4 Number 2 lead pencils; the scotts? lol…. (you may think to yourself: this is a national Test, it is a measure of qualification to enter higher education, the Proctors are skilled and trained professionals)… how, in the name of god, is that scott flirting with that Proctor in the middle of the Test!?! and, and!! the Proctor is smiling? scotts? the time is never ‘running out’.) The BoSR is for when ‘time is running out’.
7) oh shit! I meant to explain the Book of Secret Rules for the New participants (I hate that cutsey, sells-a-million-more-books-than-I-ever-will, “(fill-in-the-blank)….for Dummies). We will not ever have a BoSR for Dummies. If anything, the SBoR is the antithesis of every ‘…for Dummies’, ‘Cliff Notes’ or “Learn-to-Seduce-Anyone-in-30-Minutes’ book out there! I am totally grateful that there is a Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) that is available to anyone with the imagination, seriousness (about the underlying intent of this bloghop) and nerve to pick it up and use it.
8) I did go for a walk with Una last evening. Here:
9) I would be grateful to anyone out there who might find me a citation in the BoSR that would allow me an alternative to SBoR 1.3 (aka 3.1) in order to finish today’s post and get out to work.
10) Landscaping update! the grass is beginning to grow in, unfortunately it’s growing like the beard on a 13 year old blond boy…. (look! 5 hairs next to each other!)
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* older bloggers can come and chat and still be off in time to watch Matlock at 9:00 or they stay around when the youngsters ‘dial-up’ people like that Joy girl (hubba hubba! there’s a scottian life form!)
About clarkscottroger
I’m reading a book called The Power of Habit. It sounds like you and Zoe could have been doing a book club for that book. Interesting stuff.
Hopefully your lawn matures soon! :-)
(in this part of the country, the Fall is considered the best time to establish a new lawn), not so big on the patience thing, though
Oh, and frist!
yes! FRIST
Every post contains at least one bust out loud laughing line. This week’s?
This is mostly due to the open-endedness of our definition of the word ‘normal’.
;p
Ugh, I am struggling with a cold, as well. Nasty thing. Here’s to muddling through.
what’s the old chestnut? ‘90% of success is just showing up.” as a clark, we find much of interest in the altered consciousness of the cold…
Oh how I love google.. From someone with a curious mind…sometmes climbing library ladders is fun. Sometimes I just want the general gist of whatever I was curious of halfway thinking about.
nothing short of amazing… z and I were laughing when I typed in the search question… thinking, no way! yes way
the old libraries are very cool… (and used book shops…if there are any left in the world)
Isn’t it rule 42.4 subsection j13 that is interchangeable with standby rule 1.3/3.1?
by george, I think that’s correct!
Just watched the vid. Una did not disappoint!
Stupid auto correct.
lol got it!
hey ho! (yes, I talk different here, sometimes)…. get…?
Love your list, love your descriptions. This week I am totally convinced I’m a roger. I know grass grows in slowly but if you take a picture from a side view, it looks lush. When you look down at it, that’s when it looks sparse.
well the good thing (about our Doctrine) is that it is at heart, simply a perspective on the world… eventually you will find that, when you look back over past decisions/impressions/reactions/ and inferences, you will see a consistency in how you relate yourself to the world around you
Hope your cold gets better soon. I’ve not been feeling good today at all. I was so disappointed when I got up this morning not feeling well. I must have caught a bug or something and hope to wake up in the morning as fresh as a daisy.
seems to be going around, all in all, I have done pretty well this Summer season, this being probably the second cold I’ve had this year.
The Clark part of me finds having an illness interesting too, though I’d need time to get over it! But I kind of disagree on the patients bit….Rogers are quite good patients, no?
…I’m glad you used that word!
rogers do, in fact, make the best patients, in a formal medical treatment environment, i.e. a hospital. staying at home and having something like a flu or a cold, er… maybe not always as good
lol
Yep, gotta admit, I’m not good with the flu bit! Find it debilitating!
Sorry to hear you are under the weather and hope you feel better soon. As for the wonders of Google and its ability to find ALMOST anything – agreed. It is pretty amazing.
thank you…. just a cold (with slight fever) nothing too disruptive, though I find that I get tired faster while recuperating
“unfortunately it’s growing like the beard on a 13 year old blond boy…. (look! 5 hairs next to each other!)” – or like a 19 year old ginger boy….
Sorry you have a notty nose.
lol….
Atlas.
Star Trek.
“LOOK! A DISTRACTION!”
I wonder if Zoe will ever let us know any more about them, like their names and how come they ended up as the Seven. Are they eunuchs? Did they volunteer? I NEED TO KNOW!
Lizzi
“Are they eunuchs?”
two words!!
ewww!!! no!
no eunchs!! (at least not for the Guy Virgins!!) if the girl Virgins want to be eunuchs and write on the back of pristine Blue-cardboard-covers Composition books, who am I to say. But the guy GVs… well, like able cheerleaders, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, as long as they do their jobs overseeing the BoSR
Well I’m not planning on CHECKING, if that’s what you mean! But…what’s their history – why are they so committed to this task…what’s their deal…?
ok
the SGV: here we have a group(7) of young (and attractive) and un-approachable (like that ever happens with attractive people…) people who are charged with maintaining the functional integrity (and spirit) of the BoSR (aka SBoR). They appear, most of the time, as passive observers and yet wield what can only be described as unlimited power. Think of a Muse….with an agenda and a mercurial temperament. The real challenge is to decide which are clarks and scotts and rogers… 7 is not, the last time I looked, a number dividable by 3.
…their virginity? is that not the prequist for an agent of Power? there is a saying, ‘those the gods would destroy, they first make mad’ And those the gods would use to enforce their will, they make celibate. And who, among humans (male or female) is mostly likely to buy the idea that there is power is more pure (and focused and controllable and therefore not likely to backfire) when wielded by one in a state of purity.
There’s that, it’s true.
I still think we need to know more about them. Though perhaps their power is in their mystery. So…perhaps not, then!
mystery??!! did you just suggest we do a collaborative story?? done in the style of the pulp detective story?? complete with offices with frosted glass windows…elevators with attendants and sultry broads?!?
I am thankful for the blissful distraction. Allowing my mind to muse through this magical book and how I might launch an exhibition to steal it for myself. I think the virgins are really tarts.
…well, there is the rumor of the repressed, un-published and banned in Composition Classes on 2 continents… edition of the SBoR…
Where did all these people and comments come from?! Good to see so much interaction here on the WD blog!
Habits being hard to break…Please oh please help me help the resident 16 year old “clark” to change some horribly awful bad habits.
Sounds like the cold is all over the east coast! Sorry you’ve gotten it, too. Hope you feel back to normal soon.
habits… lol either: a) if it works, don’t fix it or b) ….er better play it safe and…
The Wakefield Doctrine is, of course, for you and not them and, I suspect, parents learn to know their kids awfully well….that being said, how can any person not think, everything is for a ‘reason’. Unfortunately, an awful lot of people stop at, ‘yeah sure, but that doesn’t make any sense to keep doing that!!’ might if you were a clark…. maybe if you were a roger it would be reasonable, (hell), if one were living in the scottian worldview certain habits might be the best approach to a situation.
Another perspective. That’s what the Wakefield Doctrine does so well. Simple, but not easy. The hardest part? the decisions and choices and habits a person will develop will not only ‘make sense’ in their worldview, but will, in all likelihood be the best approach to whatever is going on…. and it is real. not just, ‘ok, stop screwing around. that’s getting annoying/counter-productive…cut it out’ real….real. (that’s why we call them personal realities.
simply knowing this (that there are essentially three characteristic personal realities) puts you in the position to ‘seeing the world as the 16 year is experiencing it’ Then, by being in a position where the other person knows/believes that you know where he’s coming from (as we used to say), then you might be able to offer a new and improved habit! to replace the old ones. Don’t forget, you are a scott. The reality in which you solve problems is essentially different from that of a clark. Not totally… but remember the difference. (“well, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them. Just go up to them directly and….” like that. a clark will understand that and even agree, but that is a scottian response, not a clarklike response. you’ll need to use your understanding of his reality to come up with a ‘strategy’ that is better than his, maybe not as good as yours’…. he will thank you for it.) You’ll do fine.
“the decisions and choices and habits a person will develop will not only ‘make sense’ in their worldview, but will, in all likelihood be the best approach to whatever is going on”
Exactly. He honestly thinks the choices he is making are the best ones at the time, even though they are completely counter to solving the actual problem. They solve the immediate one (I really don’t want to be the center of attention here), but not the long-term one (Lying is going to get me into some seriously hot water).
You are right, as usual. I need to think like a clark. Do you know how hard it is for me to think like a clark? Ugh.
Christine
incredibly hard…. lol there is nothing that (seems to stay the same!! (in the world of clark))
“…even though they are completely counter to solving the actual problem.” of course, the trick is what the person considers the ‘actual problem’. that is where the Wakefield Doctrine with it’s alternate perspectives is helpful.
a clue to the world of a clark: underneath/attached to nearly everything is fear. (but, fear is a different thing for all three…. for scotts: it’s perfume, it’s aroma it’s excitement… a necessary part of the experience, not fun per se, but integral to what ultimately is a good and natural thing. for clarks fear is different… it’s a part of everything and if it can be done, it should be ignored or denied… or worked around. in other words, avoided as in ‘just don’t acknowledge it’. We know that that never solves anything (fearistically-speaking), but suffice it to say that fear carries a component for clarks that is far in excess of what it seems to be…
an example? I’ll put the example of bad problem-solving in the clarklike worldview in Reply to your other Comment on ‘today’s Post