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

Today we join Kristi and Kenya at the newly revamped Finish the Sentence Friday bloghop. The primary change was to provide a different ‘theme’ or prompt, each week. There’s a chart out there that Kristi put on the group’s page on ‘the Facebook’. It tells one what needs to be done, wordistically-speaking.

So this week it’s… (hold on, let me do a copy paste)

Finish the Sentence Friday is a link-up where writers and bloggers come together to share their themselves with a particular prompt (different formats each week of the month). If you’d like to participate, join our Facebook group. Link up your prompts below! Please no “link dumping.” If you include a link, comment on other posts.

Photo Share Friday – share a photo and share the story behind it.

So.

The story behind the photo.

This photo is, in a very real, yet quite imaginary sense, my very own: Wardrobe (CS Lewis), Tornado (L Frank Baum) Rabbit Hole (Lewis Carroll). The people in the photo are the namesakes of the central idea that brought me to the virtual world: the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on the world and the people around us. It is easy to learn, fun to use and available only to those with the kind of curiosity that welcomes new ideas and the intellect to permit major league suspension of disbelief.

The people in the photo? They are the people from which we derive the three personality types¹ of the Wakefield Doctrine. Before we go any further, I will state un-equivocally: the Wakefield Doctrine is gender, age and culture neutral. As it happened, the people around which the concept of the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers took form were three guys by the name(s): clark, scott, roger.

As with any personality type schema, the names are markers, the characteristics of the three types is where the fun (and usefulness) are at.

I’m thinking, ‘OK, the instructions for this week are clear enough, ‘share a photo and share the story behind it’. Do they mean the story of how the photo came to exist or do they want to know what the photo represents, symbolizes or simply ‘why this photo’.

Gotta go with Door Number Three.

You know how all those personality type systems with their clever little surveys and tests and all are so much fun to take and even more fun to share? “”Honey? Come here, there’s this Quiz on the Facebook, it so has you down to a ‘T'”.  The Wakefield Doctrine is exactly like that, except different.

Being a perspective, rather than a thing, the purpose, use and value of the Wakefield Doctrine is aid us in our efforts to better understand the world and people around us. The Doctrine approaches this by challenging us to discover how a person is relating themselves to the world around them. It (does this) by proposing that we all experience the world, to a small but certain extent, on a personal basis. This is referred to as a ‘worldview’. The theory holds that we are, all of us, born with the potential to experience the world (and, very importantly), grow up and develop in one of three worldviews, that of the Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) or the Herd Member(rogers). At a very early age we end up in one and develop our coping strategies appropriate to the character of that worldview.

“But! But what the heck does this have to do with CS Lewis or, for that matter, the blogosphere? What about that?”

Guess I should describe the path from a chance insight in 1981 and typing today’s post.
In the summer of 2009, I was driving around with a friend talking about life, reality and ‘the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers’. For whatever reason, I said, ‘This theory is so true and so much fun, I got to do something more with it’. My friend replied, ‘I agree and, in my work in counseling, I do in fact use the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers at times. But the name is not good, too college dorm. You need a better name.’ I then said, ‘Alright then. From now on it’s the Wakefield Doctrine.’ He laughed, ‘That’s an excellent name. What are you going to do with this Wakefield Doctrine?’ I replied, ‘Well, I guess I need to start a blog. Let the world know all about it.’

The weird part? Until that Saturday evening, my opinion of blogs and bloggers was the rather typical, ‘Sure, now what makes you think that you have anything to say on this blog that anyone would care to read? What you had for breakfast? Maybe your opinion on the state of the world! Yeah, right.’ The thing is, with the decision came a passion that I cannot recall experiencing before, at least not in public and in the daytime. I found that writing posts was the opposite of work. I couldn’t wait to start the next one.

Now the really weird part. I didn’t change. I was still a clark. (I will leave the fun of discovering the full implications of that statement to new Readers). Suffice to say, all of my insecurities, fear of scrutiny, fear of looking like an idiot, fear of meeting people, all stopped existing in the context of writing this here blog here. Seriously. I found a strength (I already used the ‘passion word’) that not only had me going beyond my lifetime-accepted limitations, I enjoyed doing everything and anything I could to get the story of the Wakefield Doctrine out to as many people and readers as I could. This ‘everything’, included joining my first bloghop. Yep! Finish the Sentence Friday (and the Facebook) was a threshold I crossed that brought me into contact with many I still value as friends.

…the actual photo? Taken in the mansion at Harkness Memorial State Park on the shores of Long Island Sound in the town of Waterford, Connecticut.

Guess that says it all. The photo I’m sharing this particular Friday explains how it is I’m here sharing this photo.

1) hey! I was down here getting ready to disclaimer whatever it was I thought I should, to head-off any criticism of ‘over-reaching’ or ‘being silly’ with the terms I use to describe the Doctrine. You know, something to the effect that ‘this is all based on anecdotal evidence and does not claim status as…’ then it struck me, ‘Well, duh, clark. Give the readers some credit, why don ‘cha?’ Ain’t a chi square, distribution analysis or bell curve within fifty metres* of your blog.’
I thank you, future Readers, for reminding me to stay with what makes this Wakefield Doctrine so unique and fun… the fun and uniqueness of it!

* lol, sorry, couldn’t resist