Month: January 2017 | the Wakefield Doctrine

“…too early to work” -the Wakefield Doctrine- “surely not too early to reprint an old Post!”

January 31, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Up way too early. Work and writing, neither wanted to go to bed last night. And, yeah, that wouldn’t be the worst thing, the worst thing was that both (work and writing) was just in my head. All of the bad and none of the good, oh well, what’cha gonna do?

Re-print an old Post?

Well, I don’t mind if I do! Not the same level of satisfaction as writing new content, but better than looking at ‘the Facebook’, which is getting kinda old (‘except for the Gravity Challenge! that’s a whole ‘nother thing. If you want to watch your weight and would like to do so in the company of some interesting people, come on over to the Gravity Challenge! We’d be glad to have you join us. Easy as can be. Every day we take a photo of the readout of our scale(s) and send it in, whereupon I post it to the aforementioned Facebook. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Oh, btw, we have what’s called Kristi’s Rule. It says, any portion of that readout you care to send in, works fine. The Challenge is about the change, not the number. So click here.)

reprint from a few years ago:

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of personality that you get to enjoy with your friends and them, before it gets all famous and mainstreamy and everyone will know about it)

Question: If your husband is a roger and you are a clark, is it true that they never accept how much you have changed over the years, since you first met?
Answer: Too true¹

(Welcome to ‘ya shoulda just asked Tuesday’! We will be presenting some common questions and the semi-comprehensive answers…along with a little commentary, mostly to let us get away with dividing the page into block quotes.’)

Question: My best friend is funny and fun to be with, but sometimes when we are around other people he gets like, mean even goes and picks on me. But this happens only with certain people, this big kid that (my friend) knows. What gives?

Answer: Chances are your friend is a scott and the person that, when they’re around, your friend starts acting mean?…well, that other person is a scott too, but they are what we call dominant (to your friend). So your friend, even though he is picking on you, doesn’t mean to hurt your friendship… it’s a pack² thing, you know?
Answer: jeez, if you say so,

(This question deals with the changing pack order (from the scottian perspective) and it’s effects on the behavior of a scott. Note: this question (and by implication, the experience cited), will most likely be posed by a clark. Do you know why that should be?)

Question: My fiancée and I are getting close to the Big Day. When we first got engaged, we both agreed to keep the ceremony and everything on the quiet, low-key side, but lately, ( the wedding is in 3 months), she has been talking more to her sisters and some of her old friends and it seems like the guest list is getting bigger and bigger. What gives?

Answer: She is probably a roger. Forget about changing her mind. It means a lot to her, in a way that you will never understand. So relax! Sneak a couple of your friends that she might not have approved when the guest list was small, she probably won’t even notice now, and if she does make an issue of it, say the following to her (word for word): “I understand how important family is to you now. And even though I am not close to my family, you have shown me that my feelings³ of friendship with (fill in the names of you friends) make them like family. Won’t you let my family join your family …darling?”

(And there are those who would say, ‘Hey Wakefield Doctrinaires! Sure you have a uniquely clever take on personality types, but what about practical applications? Huh, what about those?’ Well, here ya go! Who cannot not identify with this situation? …not counting the rogers, of course!)

Question: My boss is nice enough, but it seems like he tries too hard to be, like my friend or something! Every day it is ‘how are you doing?’, “is there anything I can do to make your job easier?” I mean, all the time! I can’t get any work done when he is in the office, he is always offering to ‘help’! I might be able to deal with this, except that every time I do get some work done that he needs to sign off on, he always finds fault! And if I come up with something on my own initiative (he likes to say that he wants me to try to ‘think outside the box’) he is either totally negative or acts like he is amazed that I actually did it myself! Should I quite my job?
Answer: Probably.⁴

(This Question deals with a scenario that is all too common. And, although we do not propose that all bosses are rogers, we will say this, ‘If your boss is a scott you have: a) a good time everyday up until the day he decides that it is time to change careers or b) a lead pipe cinch of a sexual harassment lawsuit, so the day you get tired of her shenanigans, ‘it’s sayonara, see ya in court’
If your boss is a clark, then we know the following: a) if your clarklike boss is female then her boss is a roger, if your clarklike boss is male then his boss is a scott! and b) they (clarks) make great bosses, will stick up for you totally against all opponents, but jeez! enough with the leadership by consensus! Get a set, yo.

That music referenced in the Title of today’s Post? Totally weird. I’m sitting and watching TV and a commercial comes on and before I can hit ‘MUTE’ I hear the music in the background (of the commercial) and I’m off to the great and omnicient google… and here we are

1) rogers are about consistency, if they are about anything at all! The worldview of the herd (rogers) maintains that history, tradition, continuity…consistency is of the greatest good! The worldview is also one in which the individual’s relationship with the world-at-large manifests primarily in emotional terms. So when a (lasting) relationship forms, the details of ‘the other’ person are important, in a sense, manifesting the emotional investment. So, as time goes by, even though people change and grow and develop, the roger will still insist on seeing the ‘original person’

2) scotts, in the initial behavioral metaphor: like pack animals, i.e. wolves, dogs, lions and such. The social ranking in the pack is one of simple dominance, an alpha at ‘the top’ and everyone else in order of strength/prowess/capability downward from there. It is a primary characteristic of the scottian personality type to establish ranking when entering a new (social ) environment. Literally going from person to person, figuratively pushing them on the shoulder in order to establish ranking

3) emotions! always play the emotion-card when dealing with rogers!

4) you could try to…nah, don’t even bother. Maybe if you got to the Doctrine sooner, you might have learned enough to invoke your own rogerian aspect to re-configure your work relationship… but too hard, too frustrating, easier to get another job. But then again, most bosses/middle managers/supervisors/Principals are rogers! so maybe you should be asking about the Wakefield Doctrine School of Self-Improving Oneself…school

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, predicting human behavior, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

January 28, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Our Founderess, Lizzi Lewis, is still on her adventure (work-related, adventurous, nonetheless) so, let’s try what we did last week, I’ll post links to posts behind photos below.

1) the internets ’cause otherwise, this’d be nothing more than writing on a chalkboard hung on the wall at my house.

2) this bloghop: Lizzi and the co-hostinae’s efforts over the years, (yes, it’s been years now)

3) Phyllis and Una, not only because they are a permanent (to date) feature of my TToT, but because each week they exhibit behavior that, if I manage to allow myself to see, offers an opportunity to self-improve myself (except for the brevity and directness thing… that’s kinda, let’s go with ‘work-in-progress’)

4) my work and profession, if for no other reason than it allows me the luxury of control of my time. The price is that, by being in business, all my income is directly dependent on my efforts and actions, but, what the heck. (I’ve done other work in my past and this is best suited to who and what I am at the moment. Sometimes, when we’re watching, ‘How It’s Made’ (which is surely the height of television entertainment these days), they’ll be doing a piece that involves assembly lines. I always say the same thing, ‘8 hours a day…5 days a week’. I have the utmost admiration for those able to work at repetitive tasks (and still bring a level of concentration that evaporates in the third cycle, were I to attempt it.)

5) Lets have an intermission! Anyone out there participating, I’ll post here:

hey! J’s in who’s next?

zoe in da house (ARR!)

Kristi!

Pat stopped by!

(Your Photo here)

6) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

7) ‘Almira‘ approaching (still!) the end. It’s like (fill in the blank, you’re all imaginative people, you can provide your own metaphor), the pressure builds to do justice to the story that has un-folded over nearly a year, intermixed with times of remembering the simple fun of constructing improbably long sentences, ignoring all the rules and standards for proper fiction and seeing the scene. I’m sure I’ll see the dimming of the light in a week or two.

8) the Wakefield Doctrine the total sine qua non, it (the Doctrine) is the reason I am able to write this blog and it is the (original) motivation for writing, which in turn sparked my interest in writing.

9) Hey! new Graviteer has joined the Gravity Challenge… long time TToT participant, May!! Hey ho, May! (Hey Readers, TToTeers you totally need to stop by the Challenge this week, if for no other reason than to check out the very excellent scale that May is employing. tres cool.)

10) Secret Rule 1.3

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

January 26, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

If it’s Wednesday evening, then it’s time to stretch them rhetorical (some)-ceps or linguistic (whatever)-maximus and get ready to sneak up on the prompt word of the week. (OK I’ll spare you the Wild Kingdom parody).

zoe speaks and says, the word this week is ‘Given’. Write a story. Make it six sentences long. And have fun.

(I’ve commented in the past how the writing in this ‘hop is all kinds of good and that I get as much pleasure from trying to figure out how the others do what they do so well with their Six Sentence Stories. Especially the serial writers like Josie and Stella and Mimi, among others. So, I thought what the hell! Lets try to see if the semi-serial I implied a few months ago would hold up to another installment. Not being all that confident that today’s Six would hold up in terms of continuity, I put the links to the first two installments at the bottom of the post. Plus I needed to read them to get a sense of the story….lol.)

Given

The scent of girl and the growling of a dog pulled me out of my rum oblivion. Given the 90 proof paraffin sealing my eyes, it might have saved the day for all three of us, which would’ve resulted in two grateful survivors. I once heard on some show, an old guy saying, ‘Man’s most basic fears are falling and sudden motion’, then again, it was from a black and white TV on a shelf, surrounded by neon lights in a bar on a Thursday afternoon.

A girl and a dog were filling the space to my left, so I pushed upwards against the wall at my back, the bricks slippery with the morning dew and grease from the restaurant vent fan, unfortunately I under-estimated the strength remaining in my legs and over-balanced, on my way to upright. Reaching out instinctively (like the old guy in the bar said), for something to steady myself, my right ear was slapped by a surprised and really angry sounding voice, “Was sum Teufel!?”

My grip on tailored cloth tighten, as a flash of blonde-on-sexy and good-dog, brushed past me as I fell back under a pile of pissed off german.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- (it’s all kinds of fun and useful!)

January 21, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Don’t you love it when one thing becomes more than one? (Of course, as all clarks instinctively recognize, if not lack the standing to take advantage of it* all things are one and one can be all things.)

Whoa! Yeah, take a second, remind yourself, ‘oh, that’s right! this is the Wakefield Doctrine I’m reading! they ain’t heavy, they’re just having fun!’

Anyway … I’m referring to my subtitle ‘it’s all kinds of fun and useful’ and while I wrote it to reference the Wakefield Doctrine, it immediately connected to this bloghop, the Ten Things of Thankful. Two inferences for the price of one!

So on with the TToT.

1) Lizzi Lewis (who continues to deny her famous great-uncle (on her mother’s side)), for creating this here bloghop here. The cool thing about the TToT is that you can’t do it wrong! (yeah, I’m feeling all Oxford don-ish, so I’m gonna go ahead and leave that one hanging out there… one hint: BoSR/SBoR)

2) Phyllis and Una: one for demonstrating how simply useful and beneficial the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine can be in terms of living one’s life, the other for demonstrating how good simple life can be.

3) ‘Almira‘ what an interesting trip it’s been, these last 42 or so weeks. Experiencing an odd reluctance to write the remaining chapters. I suspect that it’s the same as the reluctance of our readers to read the last chapters.

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

5) the photo at the top is from a church where I was sitting (in the back, of course) attending a funeral for the spouse of someone I know. Talk about your essential paradox of life! I felt sympathy for the living person in the front pew and yet was grateful to be included among those who were expected to be there. In a clarklike way, there are few of events more life-affirming than a funeral. It serves, (for me), as a reminder of the whole ‘grain of sand’ thing in Blake’s poem. Next to walking out through the doors of a hospital after visiting a sick friend, there are few times when the world feels as large and full of potential, as when I walk out and away from a funeral service, as I did the other day.

6) the gang at Six Sentence Stories. Talk of creating a world and a community! zoe has done what people who are gifted with people and have the ability to let strangers feel like they belong do. Every Thursday, theys a bunch a people what write stories in six (and precisely six) sentences… (yeah, I’m a clark, so, of course, I went for the patois)

7) the crew at the Gravity Challenge val and joy, lisa and sarah and kristi (hey! you need to join us! well, no, not need to…. need to as in, its fun and useful! And we have Kristi’s Rule which says: ‘take a photo first thing every morning (except Sunday). it can be of as much or as little of the scale readout as you want. what we’re sharing each morning is the change, the experience of Stable Weight or the hunt for a new stable weight’)

8) (gonna repeat last weeks thing of leaving an item blank for now, seeing as it’s only 8:13 in the morning, surely after a day in the field, I’ll have something interesting or, failing that, a cool photo)

9) (did you miss the part about ‘leaving an item blank for now?’)

9.3) Hey! here’s an idea Why don’t we try to post other TToT posts here… in this one. It might work, at least until Lizzi gets back from the Dark Continent (do they still call it, ‘the Dark Continent?’ they don’t? what the hell! It’s a pretty cool name. (Interviewer: “Where were you born, Mr scottroger?” Me: “Well, as a matter of fact, I was born in a speeding cab careening through a small village in the heart of the Dark Continent.” Interviewer: “Cool!”)

I am totally proud of css-self! see the photos? click on ’em

anyway, here goes. In order of the Facebook, Wendy’s TToT:

now, Pat Brockett’s:

Kristi:

terrormom

10) SR 1.3 (New Readers? SR 1.3 stands for ‘Secret Rule 1.3’ and it’s to be found in the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) zoe just happens to be the Reference Librarian (yeah, complete with reading glasses worn around the neck, a chain of strung crystal beads, and …and! she has one of those clasping holders for chalk? you know, you push the button on one end and these teeth-things open and you put the chalk in and release the button. white chalk unless (on special occasions only, blue!) and a timer that sits on the front of her desk. which, in turn, is one of those closed-front, short squared legs oak desks with the handles on the front of drawers made of the same wood and a locking shallow middle drawer.

* there are notable exceptions, of course. Among them, one Cynthia (‘my friends call me Sageleaf‘) Calhoun who has been my personal…. hey! there must be a word for designating a person who exemplifies ‘principle in practice’…. damn, whatever, if I can’t find it, then I’ll just have to make a word up!

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -Wakefield Doctrine- ‘to every season…’

January 19, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Way late tonight! It’s 6:43 and I’m only just now typing my Six Sentence Story warm-up. Bear with me, this weeks’ prompt word is ‘Turn’. Zoe, in her wisdom is charging us to write a certain story employing the word. The certain thing about the Six Sentence Story is that story must be six sentences in length and it cannot be seven or eighty-three sentences long. This story that you know you want to write? It must not be five sentences or one sentence long.

Otherwise the bloghop name, ‘Six Sentence Story‘ wouldn’t make sense and sense we must make.

Lets consider ‘Turn’

The old couple walked out onto the pier that connected the earth to the sea in the small fishing port, one of several broad wooden fingers that extended from the dirt-puddled parking lot, itself an ocean of refuse and disappointed dreams, mostly half-crushed coffee cups, pieces of plastic twine and the occasional single rubberized glove, its finger tips worn through, the Final Decree for a once perfect couple.

She stepped carefully, one eye towards the many dangers that lay on their path and one (secret) eye on her companion, who, in turn, expressed the gender imperative of matching caution with daring, sensibility with recklessness; age-edited memories of a younger day beckoned to him. All around them was an aromatic museum of human endeavor as old as farming, necessity-born ingenuity displayed in the coils of wire cables and the greasy complexity of the machinery that filled the open decks of the boats.

Amidst and among the metal masts and tin-capped pilings, the birds flew, disturbed by the approach of the couple who were clearly not native to either of the worlds that the gulls inhabited.

Finding a crumbly arc of a white-sugared donut, the old man smiled and threw it up as high as he could, (which was higher than she thought and not as high as he hoped), the birds wheeled in unison, diving towards the food.

“Did you see the tern turn in turn,” the man laughed, forgetting how old he was; his wife smiled, knowing how old they were.