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

Drexel 

Two purposes for today’s brief Post:

1. to follow-up on an Item in  Saturday’s Post that elicited several very good Comments
2. to see if writing a Post, (with a certain deliberate intent) can serve as a way to focus my outlook on the current day
3. because it’s fun and if I’m ever going to learn to do this writing thing as good as them folks I read, I guess I better practice, right?

The Item:

as a clark, I find that when I’m walking to the mailbox in the rain without a coat or in December without shoes, it helps me realize how important it is to appreciate what is. That I am not in a hospital bed, or in a wheel chair or in the house because I am not able to leave…. I find that I ‘enjoy’ the harsh feelings of the 30 degree morning in part when I can know that it is a very real possibility that someday I will be in a place where I look back on (these days) and wish to anything that I might again have the opportunity to do something as silly as walk to the mailbox without shoes or a coat in December.

The Comment:

Knowing cold does make one appreciate warm more. Maybe I need to walk to the mailbox in bare feet so I can appreciate the heat of the sidewalk in summer time?  (Kristi)

It is an interesting way to remain grateful for what you do have and an interesting way to create memories to look back on. That walking in the cold to the mailbox. Maybe a little masochistic .  (Fangboner)

It may seem odd for me to say that I agree with the first and (feel) the need to explain as to the second Comment.

This exercise (the walking, not the writing) is about leverage. In the world(view) of a clark there is a form of disconnect between the rational and the emotional. Not an absence of emotions and not a control of the rational. Both are quite there, simply not integrated….  wait, that’s getting too  er  clarklike.
Try this:  clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.  yeah! that’s better.
The world that I woke up to this morning is a world in which the rational is the medium of expression for me. While for, say Kristi, the world is, among other things, a world in which emotions are the medium (and, possibly the message). Fine. Both equal, not being compared as which is better, they just are that way.

You know that thing about how there is one predominant worldview and we still have ‘the other two’ within? This is what the barefoot thing is really about. I know that I ‘live in my head’. I know that while that is the way it is, it is not necessarily the best way to live. So, while I might know this, I ask myself how do I alter it?  no, learning more about how to live is not the answer!  I’m already learning the shit out of things.  Anyone? Dyanne?  ‘Stop thinking and just live!!!’  yes, that is one answer.   Kristi  in her Comment actually gives us the answer, in her choice of words.  no, not the ‘knowing’ part. the ‘appreciating’ part. the emotional aspect of the experience.

(For a clark) to do what we’re talking about, requires emotional leverage. To find a way to generate feelings(emotions) in concert with knowing something.
I get that I should appreciate the day I have today. I understand that I should not act like I’m immortal today*. I know that the littlest thing I do and say and encounter and share today, may very well be a thing of priceless value to me someday. I know that there will come a time, when I’m on my deathbed and I (may) have a moment to reflect on my life. A life spent inside my head is not a bad thing, but it is not as good as a life spent thinking and acting and feeling.

ya know?

Thanks to Kristi and Fangboner and the others what Commented at the Doctrine this weekend.

* a reference to something that Castanada had his character don Juan Mateus say about living in the present and making decisions not as if I would get a chance to do it again, rather to act as if it were my only chance to act.  At least that’s how I read it.