Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Fairly anticlimactic ending to the Wakefield Doctrine’s Great 30-Posts-in-30 Days 30 Day Challenge. One more day.

….you know, as a young clarklike child, I used to deal with approaching bad things ( trips to the dentist, asking a girl out the first time, trying for a job that I believed I should really want), grammatically. No, I’m serious! I would think about what was coming in a day or a two weeks or at the end of high school and try to figure it out.  …and when that didn’t change anything ( ha ha… a bit of Doctrine humour) I would finally think, “well, no matter what, there will come a time when this thing will have had happened.”   (To the scotts out there reading this, ‘yes we do put a tremendous amount of energy and effort into things that we should not be putting our energy into‘.)  But!  …it helped.  That game of words helped me get through the difficult time. It was, in fact, the best possible strategy that I could come up with, given the reality that I faced.

This bears repeating. In fact, my Reply to Christine’s Comment in yesterday’s Post, was a variation of this very concept, i.e. when we attempt to help a person who is living in a different predominate worldview, the best/first thing we can do is appreciate the world as they are experiencing it.  (note! not:  understand what they are going through, not figure out where they went wrong, not even…know how they feel…. appreciate¹)  The reason being that, as a clark, I don’t make my decisions, (and form my opinions and develop my strategies), just because I feel like acting the odd one, I do it because that is the nature/character of the reality I am living in. (no, that is not a giant, universal excuse for doing …whatever),  worldviews are not separate realities², we all live in ‘the world’ and we all have essentially the same situations and choices and demands and requirement (yes, you do hear Tesla warming up in the distance).  But our personal realities are still there, so close that only we can see them.

as to the end of the 30 Day Challenge?

The Wakefield Doctrine is not ‘the Answer’, it is a tool,  a viewpoint, a perspective. The Wakefield Doctrine does not tell you what to do, it tells you that there is more to the world than you might be aware of. The Wakefield Doctrine will not change the nature of the problems that you face today, but it might let you see a another way to see the world today. However, the Wakefield Doctrine does help you (if you are so inclined) to see the world as your husband or your Teacher, your 16 year old child or Shift Manager, your physician or that girl you really like, are experiencing it. ….and you know, that’s not such a bad thing.

…and it’s fun.

1) as in the second definition listed in most dictionaries:  “…To be fully aware of or sensitive to; realize:  (www.thefreedictionary.com/appreciate)

2) thanks, Carlos!