Month: September 2016 | the Wakefield Doctrine Month: September 2016 | the Wakefield Doctrine

TTOT -the Wakefield Doctrine- Special Friday Edition

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

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Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. At least they aren’t this time.1 This is that rarest of rarities, a Friday Wakefield Doctrine TToT post. There’s a reason (hell, I’m a clark, I always have a reason, even (especially) when I’m not correct.) At any rate, come join CS Lewis’ favorite grandniece Lizzi R here at the longest running, of the best of, the second bloghop that the Doctrine joined up with and celebrate the week past, by sharing your list of those things that sparked a feeling of gratitude2 in the past week3.

Lets get to it.

1)  That there is a Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

2) faux understanding, (though I will lay claim to a genuine sense of enjoyment and appreciation) of Latin phrases, to wit: ‘sine qua non‘ as this phrase (and many others that I’ve appropriated from the history and literature books, like the boy out to build his first fort in the woods, if it’s flat and not metal, then it will serve as siding and if it is metal but heavy, then it’s the perfect tool for hammering in nails, wood-screws, dowels and anything else that’s sticking out when it should be sticking in) as I struggle to express my thoughts in a way that will not be too confusing.

3) sine that fortunately is not non, is Item #1:  everyone’s favorite secret personality theory. It is central to my activities now, (and for the last 6 to 33 years ), particularly in my efforts at writing, here in the ‘sphere. (In the interests of padding my list, I will cite some of the more significant elements of my life that exists solely because of the Doctrine.)

4) Hey, y’all heard about the writing group I signed up with, right? Yeah! Doctrine’s posse be gettin’ large…. (well, yes, I am practicing my rhetorical skills, surely they’ll be impressed with my….er eclecticism and such. I did mention that the RWRI is a group of talented and published(!) writers of that interesting genre ‘Romance’, didn’t I? At present, in proper clarklike fashion, I’m looking up titles on my kindle from the various group members and reading like crazy. This is a perfect illustration of the non-discriminatory and totally non-practical approach that a clark takes to learning about a specific topic, I have very little memory for names and almost zero ability to match names with faces, the result will be that I’ll know about the plot of number of books written by member of the RWRI, at least on a excerpt level4 (“Well, no clark, that was Anita’s work, but thank you nevertheless! And, since you ask, while there are many sub-genres, including Regency and Inspirational, even Paranormal. I don’t think that anyone has established a Romance sub-genre that focuses on self-born computer entities.” )

5) At any rate, the group has a thing they do as part of the monthly meeting called, ‘Silent Critique’ … and guess what?  (yes, I do hear Cynthia and zoe in the distance going, ‘No. Way. !’ Yes way. Gots to blame and credit the Wakefield Doctrine for the …whatever that makes me raise my metaphoric hand (still in the back of the room, of course) and say, “I’ll do it.” So tomorrow I’ll be reading the 1st three pages of Chapter 1 of ‘Almira’. (wish me luck)

6) the photo at the top of the Post? Una is there, sitting in the window, I swear! Taken this morning as I walked back to the house after taking the garbage out (thats me in the cover photo), even knowing she was in the window there I could barely see her. But look closely for a couple of geometric shapes in the cent of the photo, those are her ears. Black on black with a reflection… easy to see!

7) Phyllis and her tree fort… like the old saying holds: “It’s not the things we do as much as how we feel about them that makes the matters.”

8) The funny thing about the Doctrine and all this writing and blogging and joining writers groups and sending out query letters to Literary Agencies, it’s all driven by my need to write the perfect Wakefield Doctrine post/book. My skills were marginal when I showed up in this place and Ive being paying the belated price of ignoring my English lessons in Grade School.

9) Featured Hostinae of the Week!!  Kristi Campbell!! Kristi, (or as her friends call her, ‘Kristi’) is not only a natural for the blogosphere, but she has a way about her that inspires the non-confident and intimidates the aggressively over-confident. One of the original co-hostinae of this here bloghop here, I met her back in the first bloghop I had the nerve to participate in, Finish the Sentence Friday which she co-hosts to even this day. She can be found on the Facebook, of course, but you need to go over to her site, Finding Ninee . It’s a perfect example of what kind of good things can happen when talented people use the tools of this virtual world. Go there, stress that bandwidth.

10) SR 1.3  New Readers?  check with our Curatoress of the BoSR/SBoR (and Mistress of the SGV), zoe she’ll totally give you the 411.

 

 

1) yeah, the worst thing about writing as a hobby is that the better you get, the more not-such-good-word-choices become apparent. fricken emails at work are taking me, like, 3 times as long to send!

2)  or things of a hypo-gratitude character, as the Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules) allows

3)  or anytime to forms on the screen, etch-a-sketch like as you type

4)  New Readers? have you found that you’re not only comfortable, but convincing, when you discuss a topic that you didn’t realize that you knew anything about and that the meager, bare-bones facts of a Cliff Notes bookette, with the proper insightful extrapolation can be effectively convincing?  well, hello clark!

 

 

the following is prompted entirely on the basis of how the weather looked today, nothing in the ‘real’ world otherwise to prompt it, such is the remarkable power of the song

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1,2,3,4,5,6… stop! -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘we have reached the limit of sentences allowed!’

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

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(Wednesday evening)  So, I’ve got my Colman Hawkins record on the hifi’s spindle, the kitchen is all neat and tidy, scarves for throwing over the lampshades discreetly on the end tables… ok, stage is set! I’ll back later in the morning, to see what this week’s Six Sentence blind date is going to be….

zoe invites you, (the readers and other participants), to join in on her bloghhop, the Six Sentence Story. Effortless as circular desert! Six sentences, no more and no less.

rank…..rank…..rank…..rank…..rank…..rank

Artillery bombardment tore the night into long strips of screaming terror that floated down over the men, suffocating them at random intervals as they huddled in the trenches. Like ceremonial scars, rows that ran over the hills and through the valleys of the French countryside, just north of Marne, were dug by men with the furor of self-preservation and now, once dug, inhabited by young men made ancient by over-exposure to the cold wet fact of their own mortality.

“Whadda we gonna do, Lieutenant,” Sargeant Lou Donoto stared at his newly commissioned commanding officer and prayed to St. Michael to be allowed  to leave the trench under his own power.

Lt. Cyril Sauvage crouched, his back pressed against the forward wall of the command dugout, feet mired in the muck that passed for solid ground in the bloody furrow and stared at the Sergeant, trying desperately to remember something from his 90 days of officer training that might stall the erosion of confidence,

“Our orders are to take the hill and, according to my instructors in OCS, the best way to do that is to organize my men into ranks and files so that if we meet resistance then the men in the files will protect our backs as we move forward,” Cyril Sauvage spoke with the heartfelt assurance reserved for the very young and the terminally ill.

“We are the rank, Lt Sauvage, there ain’t no file, there’s only the men to the right and the men to the left,” Louie Donoto looked back down the slope of the hill and saw only broken trees, craters full of liquid and un-moving parts of damaged men, “we might as well go forward, there just ain’t no going back, sir.”

Cyril Sauvage drew in a breath that was deep enough to last the rest of his life, stood up in the trench and yelled, “For God and country!”

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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘of age and aging’

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

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Friend of the Doctrine, Kristi Brierley, in a comment yesterday, posed a question that caused me to think, ‘I really need to write a post about it’. It’s a measure of how my writing has shifted and changed in the last couple of years. Now most of my keyboard time is spent with ‘Almira‘,   zoe’s Six Sentence Story and, of course, the TToT, as a result, the frequency of Doctrine posts is way down. Funny to think about how things change, I distinctly remember the early years of this blog when I couldn’t write the posts fast (or frequently) enough. There was a time when I would write a Post about the label on a pickle jar. No, seriously, here: ‘Always Chilled….Never Heated

However, today’s post is keying off Kristi’s question/comment:

I think you’ve addressed this a bit before, but this post got me wondering about your ideas about clarks, scotts, and rogers and aging. (Not that I’m calling anyone old.) Are clarks more comfortable being uncomfortable? Do rogers care less about pack mentality? Do scotts think, “Oh, well. It’s not worth the pursuit.”?

How do we age? Or rather, what unique, (and hopefully useful) insight does the Doctrine offer those of us with friends and family entering the category of ‘the aged’, as opposed to simply being ‘older.’

Rather than attributing characteristic behaviors and interests to a given personality type, the Wakefield Doctrine looks to how (the individual) experiences the world around them. In terms of Kristi’s comment, the question becomes, ‘would an interest (or predilection or characteristic behavior) be subject to wearing out, running down, becoming decrepit or otherwise aging?’ It is certainly (and unfortunately) safe to say that with age, our facilities (‘our facilities’ to make the obvious rogerian expression joke) suffer from the effects of time. Our eyes lose their prowess and blurry replaces sharp, ears surrender their ability to discriminate and words go from aperitif to goulash, our stomach and lungs and other body-part-related functioning slows and becomes unreliable. The reverse of the infant, in their determined efforts to work and talk like the tall people that surround them, we become less able.

The Wakefield Doctrine does not, however, focus on interests and predilections, characteristic behaviors. The Wakefield Doctrine proposes that we live in a personal reality that conforms to one of three characteristic worldviews: the of the Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) and the Herd Member(rogers). And so, the better question to ask is, ‘how does an old Outsider, the Senior Predator, the mature Herd Member relate themselves to the world around them(selves)? The same, just slower. more deliberately and, if possible more peevishly.

Now that we’re all picturing: lions with missing teeth, cattle sleeping (while still moving with the herd, more being carried by the Herd) and weird people hiding in the background, while forgetting that there’s no one staring, lets consider the element in Kristi’s observation that is very perceptive. Secondary aspects.

The Doctrine holds that we all are born with the potential to experience the world as one of three characteristic personal realities. It also maintains that we never lose the potential of the ‘other two’. And, in fact, some of us, have what is referred to as a ‘significant secondary aspect’. In direct response to her founding question:  “(do clarks, with age) become more comfortable with being uncomfortable?” No. But I am inclined to say that, with the slowing of (my) response to my predominant worldview, it is very possible that my secondary aspect becomes more prominent. And my secondary aspect is scottian.

I do, in fact, know people in whom their secondary aspect is becoming more and more pronounced. And, while it’s always been (a) goal of mine to develop both my secondary and tertiary aspects, in people who are not deliberately and consciously trying to do this, it can be confusing (and) disturbing.

….more to follow!

Thanks for the great question, Kristi!

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TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘of fisher cats and delayed gratification’

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

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(Well, no, today’s subtitle does not have any direct bearing on things around the Doctrine. Well, maybe it does. (See below for the fisher cat reference. (See below that for the delayed gratification)).

Fisher cats….sounds like they’re back (very non-feline sound) (well, maybe like some cats might dream of sounding like, or cats did crack and got all messed up and in a fight, then maybe it would be mistaken for a cat)[1]

Dogs  Una and Drexel and Joules [2]

Warm September weather  [3]

Blogs and the internet [4]

Joined a (‘real’ world) writers group! If my experience writing this blog has taught me anything, it’s taught me that I need to stay un-comfortable. Everything I learn, each advance I make becomes a part of who and/or what I am, and that is how it should be. But with the integration of the new and novel comes comfort and the risk of complacency. And there is, all my sincere feeling regarding the equivalency of the virtual world when it comes to the people I count as friends notwithstanding,  a certain effect of concretosity* that is not a bad thing. (And not, in and of itself necessarily a good thing…just a thing). [5]

So I thought, lets find a writers group, then I can get uncomfortable!

I joined Romance Writers of Rhode Island.  It happened that their first monthly meeting (after a Summer break) was in September. So I showed up.** (New Readers: the emphasis I’m placing on the fact that I actually walked into a room full of published writers has everything to do with being a clark. And, if I might be so bold, one more example of the efficacy of this here Doctrine here.) [6]

Anyway…. They were all very nice, courteous and friendly. I sat in the back of the room (of course) and one woman invited me to join her and her friends and did it, (the invitation) so well that I actually got up and sat in the offered seat. I sat and listened to the conversations going on around me before the meeting started.

And, hey! speaking of  ‘Almira’  Chapter 26 is due out by weeks end. Good news is that I’m beginning to see the connections that are forming among established elements of the story leading to the climax in 1939. [7]

Had a very enjoyable conversation with an associate who’s a scott with a significant secondary clarklike aspect. Remarkable combination of energy and erudition…. think combination of Don King and Stephen Hawking.  (lol! damn! I gots to get me some photos) [8]

Hostinae Spotlight of the Week!  Michelle!

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Unless I wrong (yeah, like thats gonna happen!) (lol) Michelle has been a host of this here bloghop here since it started. Her blog is ‘Getting Literal‘ and, she’s like huge over in the Hub Pages (many of the people I count as friends came her from there). Michelle lives on the other side of the planet. And…. and did a really cool walking vid tour of Singapore… like totally live. very cool  Of course she’s on the Facebook. What say we all click over to her site and test her provider’s bandwidth.[9]

Secret Book of Rules (aka Book of Secret Rules) Secret Rule 1.3 [10]

 

*  not a ‘real’ word

** I believe Woody Allen is credited with the saying, ‘80% of success is just showing up’.

 

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Six Sente ce S ory -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

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Kinda late for my Six Sentence Foreplay. May have to just try and see what I can come up with now, which happens to be 8:59 pm Wednesday. Actually this is a fairly frequently employed strategy, go for the ‘automatic writing’ SOC approach and leave it sit overnight. Sometimes there is a magical transformation overnight and I stay with the original, other times, well, I just come up with something.

For any new Readers: this is zoe’s Six Sentence Story bloghop. Every Thursday we are invited to write a story of 6 sentences (and only six sentences) based on/relating to or even using the week’s prompt word. This week the word is ‘back’.

“… for the last time, I assure you your harping on the dangers of temporal paradox are nothing more than the modern equivalent of the papal ban on Keppler’s work in astronomy, history is a tale of those who try to hold back the advance of science; only the fact that you contributed so much to getting to this point of having an actual time machine, ready to test, accounts for my inviting you here,” Dr. Philippe Spectorini looked lovingly at the display panel of the machine that filled the room where the two men stood.

“Philippe, I implore you, delay the experiment until we can at least develop a method to calculate the degree of risk of visiting the past,” John Case stood next to his partner, staring at the calibration wheels that would set the time jump, they showed the current time, much as would a digital clock, changing forward minutes at a time, “if we’re wrong about repercussions of moving back in time, how can we presume such power?”

“John, I’ve heard it all before, hell, just last century there was a group of scientists who believed that setting off the first atomic bomb would have triggered a chain reaction in the the oxygen of the atmosphere and destroy all life, thank God that didn’t prevent the real scientists from proceeding with the test, otherwise we would have lost the war, do you want to be the man who prevents the biggest advance in science from becoming a reality?”

John Case stood silently, looking at the Target Time calibration wheels and the single button marked, ‘Engage’.

“Now lets get this started, I can’t wait to see the face of Hitler when I show up in his childhood home,” Philippe Spectorini had the giddy enthusiasm most often observed in the very young, facing the prospect of driving a car, smoking a cigarette or having sex for the first time; before his partner could react, John Case reached to the panel, spun the calibration wheels back a little, a very, very little and, with the look of hopeful resignation seen on the faces of martyrs through the ages, hit Engage.

 

“… for the last time, I assure you your insistence that the dangers of temporal paradox are nothing more than the modern equivalent of the papal ban on Keppler’s work in astronomy, history is a tale of those who try to hold back the advance of science; only the fact that you contributed so much to getting to this point of having an actual time machine, ready to test, accounts for my inviting you here,” Philippe Spectorini looked lovingly at the display panel of the machine that nearly filled the room where the two men stood.

 

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