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

Others describe this bloghop much more eloquently, emphasizing the value of (a) sharing of gratitude, re-enforcing, (or reinforcing, I suspect, in some circles, both could apply), the strength imparted from a long tradition in demonstrating self-examination and the resultant life-enhancing development of skills allowing truer expression and, therefore, increased appreciation of the positive side of life.

This being the Wakefield Doctrine, I thought, ‘well, they have the normal good stuff covered, how about the other elements that are inherent in a practice such as this,  what about them?!’  So, I am totally grateful for:

1) The fact that this community is made up of people who enjoy the non-…… normal, rather than threaten by it. The TToT invites all of us to share the things for which we are grateful. It’s sorta of expected that there be Ten Things…. if, for no other reason than, the ‘Some-Number-Depending-On-Your-Week Things of Thankful’ url was already taken.

2) The fact that concepts like hypo-gratitude, an example of which I’ll cite in #3, is considered a valid Grat List item. (To the un-initiate, the idea that a bloghop that is focused on cultivating gratitude, would allow items reflecting things that we really kinda hate, might seem a bit…. off-putting.) I will maintain that it is the very opposite.  In the real world things are not always good. And, while many here at the TToT do a remarkable job of taking a bad thing (incident, event, whatever) and find the perspective that converts the negative into the positive, or at very least, into the not so negative, is a true expression of the underlying principles of a gratitude exercise. Well, hypo-gratitude items are like that… if you go to the trouble of expressing it in a way that the others can understand and identify with, then you have surely left behind the toxic negativity that is usually a part of the negatives that we encounter in our day-to-day lives.

3) Hypo-gratitude item:  Since June, when I take a shower*, I set the faucet (one of those single dial things) at about ‘5:00 o’clock’.  Comfortable. Yesterday…. morning shower and ‘5:00 o’clock’ was…. cold! Surely one of the most fundamental ways to be reminded of the inevitable change of the seasons. (I won’t even mention how ‘not-still-light’ at a reasonable time in the evening things are these days.)

4)  The people, (all virtual), who ‘enjoy’ the Gravity Challenge. Kristi and Christine and Lisa and Val and Joy . All, ( I assume), enjoy the process of the Challenge for different reasons. I, for one, find that the coolest thing about it is that, on one level, we all can identify with each other. (Sure, it’s a very, very small, quite focused and specialized aspect of a person’s life, but the magic of ‘identification’ is that I can say to a another person, ‘I know how you feel’.

5) The Six Sentence Story with headmistrae zoe. (Despite the fact that, in High School, I was this close to being named the,  ‘Most Likely to be Mistaken for an English Teacher at virtually any Stage of Life’,   I saw no value in learning to write. ( Hey! Come on! I was 17 years old, it was 1969 and loud music had just been invented! What use did I have for gerunds and participles? If it didn’t cure acne or promise to make me less of an awkward semi-geek, I did not have time for it.) Of course, today I’m scrambling to make up for the lack of skills with the written word and such. In fairness to me, most bloggers seem to be women (who are former girls) and god knows you people never had the desperate, near-psychotic levels of drive to be acceptable by the opposite sex that was de rigueur for those of us who grew up in Y Chromia. ( I suppose, to be fair, I should qualify that last statement. The ‘desperation’ of those days of adolescent agony didn’t really apply to my (caveman) scottian classmates, or, and ‘stepford husbands’ that were the rogers in high school.)  Where was I?  zoe and the 6 Sentence Stories! What a great learning opportunity! I write and I read what the others do (with the same prompt) and I learn. And I get better. Thanks z (and Josie)

6) We can’t have a TToT without expressing gratitude for one of the single coolest features of this here bloghop here, the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules). It is license to be creative, it is (an) invitation to flaunt the Rules, (such as they are), and it adds another dimension to writing Gratitude Posts. very cool

7) Dyanne…. she wrote a fun Six Sentence Story this week. (The fun was, itself, a manifestation of what it is that’s so incredible about the blogosphere. For those with sufficiently developed powers of Imagination (and his sexier sister, Visualization), it’s like writing and producing your own TV shows. Way better than what’s on the ‘real’ TV)  btw…. I have never had dark hair, even back in the day…  you’d be better off  to think more, what’s his name,   Fabio… yeah,  light color hair… (  about as long, ‘cept less straight and more… bozo fro…)

8) Phyllis and Una

9) Well, ‘where is the day-to-day, real life happenings that most people write about being grateful for?’ might be a valid question. I need to get back to you on that, ok?  (Update!  real world/real time content!! (oh boy lets see what exotic and interesting things happen in our day-to-day-world!)  7:01 am Saturday:

“why no, officer, I do not have a permit to run a petting zone! Haven’t you ever seen a Lithuanian Short-haired Shepherd before?

(psst!! Mrs Bambi, yo get the frickin kids outta here! alright, the fawn. just lay low, it’s gonna be hunting season soon.)

10) 1.3

* no, I took showers before June!! It’s just the point is about Summer, you know?!

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