Month: August 2018 | the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence sssStory -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 16, 2018 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the time of the week for some creative arranging of words in order to form sentences into a story.

As our host, Denise provides a prompt word and everyone in the blogosphere (I would add, ‘near and far’, however, neither quality holds significant domain o’er this virtual world) to write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

This week the word is:

Fear

“Timmy Williams, report to the Principle’s office immediately, Timothy Williams to the Principle’s office.”

Mrs. Nicolson’s sixth-grade home room was still filling with students, the near-whispers of eleven-year-old boys and girls were divided between enjoyment and dread, the news of a surprise history test mixed through the chatter like chocolate in a marble cake.

Timmy Williams, who always felt a secret pride in getting back to his desk well before the final bell, stared at the alternating green and white squares of the floor, certain that, somehow, they just moved, as it registered that he was that Timothy Williams the adult on loudspeaker was identifying as someone in trouble.

Worse than every face in the room swiveling like compass needles towards him, the final bell still had not rung, which meant both doors to the corridor were wide open; it was not just the twenty-five boys and girls in his class that knew he was in trouble, it was the entire school; passing kids, even Mr. Stevens the janitor, turned to stare into the room.

“Timothy, you are excused,” for a wonderful, if not oddly disconnected second, relief flooded the boy’s world, ‘he’d been excused’ of whatever it was that warranted being called to the Principle’s office; he started to slump back into his seat, a desperate smile pulling at the side of his mouth when, from the back of the class, ‘Lucky jerk gets out of the history test,” he started to protest that he wasn’t ready for the test either, when he realized that everyone was waiting and staring at him.

“The other boy said he saw you at her desk and, no it doesn’t matter who it was, the fact is Mrs. Tremonti’s fountain pen is missing; you are not being accused, however, if you know anything about this, I promise it won’t leave the room,” the principle’s voice was calming and seemed to promise that reason still prevailed, unfortunately his mind produced a very clear memory of looking in the teacher’s in the desk the day before; Timothy Williams felt a flash of freezing-cold static light up his scalp, followed, nearly a second later, by his stomach sinking much farther than it should have been able to move and still remain inside his abdomen.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

“Today, class, we have a visitor,” -the Wakefield Doctrine- “…good morning, Miz Cynthia!”

August 14, 2018 By clarkscottroger

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

As often happens, a idea/reason/demand/’hey-you-really-should-write-that-as-a-Post comes up that causes me to stop, halfway through a Reply to a Comment.

This morning is one of those Posts. Courtesy of Friend of the Doctrine, Cynthia I will demonstrate my own advancing maturity and, rather than hold forth at length, provide her

Comment:

I don’t think you could get any more accurate on that “clark” description. Seriously. It made me think of the retreat/training. The whole time people would say, “wow, you know so many things! You’re really brilliant.” (I’m not good at compliments, so I managed to mutter a thank you when that happened.) And then what happens? I don’t ace the final exam. Because you know, regurgitating answers is just not my thing. lol.
I *tried* to be a good student in school and often succeeded at it. But, then I’d get burnt out from the grind of it and just not turn in assignments due to lack of time, oversleeping or whatever. That happened more when I was younger. Grad school was different: I could “shine” on the papers we had to write. I actually didn’t mind those. They were stressful, but I would *much* rather write a paper than take a stupid test. Those things – I’ve often thought – really just demonstrate how well you regurgitate knowledge at that moment in time. They do not allow you to demonstrate all the other things you really studied in-depth on, or your real passion for the subject matter such that you know that your learning is not complete, even I did do well on a test.
When I missed those questions on my exam last week, at first I was about to beat myself up over it, because this training was really important to me. And then I remembered that no one cares about a test score. And that I will never stop exploring and learning this stuff and you can bet that I will learn it and assimilate and digest and live it more than most people. Why? Because clark. lol

To which I Replied:

…know what you mean*

What comes to mind is the ‘Everything Rule’.

The Everything Rule in the context of the Wakefield Doctrine states, ‘everyone does everything, at one time or another’. It is intended to remind us that, although we three inhabit different realities, we all encounter the same people, places and things. The beauty part of the Doctrine is that we recognize that all, and every one of, these people, places and things manifest differently for clarks, scotts and rogers. Sometimes very differently, other times really not that differently, it is the fact of the difference that is valuable. And the character of the manifestation is a reflection of the world as the individual is experiencing it. Surely this insight is the most stupendous** of advantages afforded by our Doctrine and is probably the single (at least sufficient) reason we claim that ‘with the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine you can know more about the other person than they know about themselves.’

Take knowledge (“..please” barump bump!) knowledge is ‘a different thing’ for clarks, scotts and rogers. For scotts it’s natural and singular (and therefore) limited in value.

Hey, I totally need to write this as Post. You write the best of comments (which is a reflection of your talent as a teacher.)

Ahem…where was I? lol

We will use knowledge (in the sense of the product of learning and, if time permits, the motivation for that same learning) to illustrate the ‘Everything Rule’

For scotts knowledge is naturally occurring and, as such, is of limited intrinsic value… scotts know what they need to know as scotts. They do not learn in order to become better scotts, they learn in order to become more effective scotts. Like body building or practicing to be a surgeon, you get better each tim you do it.

For rogers knowledge is like the air we breath. Absolutely necessary and essential and totally without specific value until some one decides to shut off the supply. They (rogers) will know then that the intrinsic value of air is in the person (or agency) that turned it off. Provided they escape, the knowledge that they have acquired is: there is a certainty in the world (air) and there is certainty among people (some one or some agency has the power to control it). When you meet a roger in a position of authority, pay attention to the words they use. They rarely imply that they are the authority. Rather it will be someone (or some agency) that has power. They just happen to speak for that person (or agency). This is referred to in the Wakefield Doctrine as ‘referential authority’. A hallmark of the rogerian personality type.

For clarks knowledge is the answer. Unfortunately for them, the question was misunderstood that day in learning to be human class. No doubt due to a scott throwing something at the blackboard or a roger threatening them into giving up their lunch money. In any event, knowledge is central in the life of a clark. It represents the (possibility) of learning what it is we clearly missed out on when growing up. It is the key and the membership in the common society that we immediately observed among the rogers and the scotts. In other words, the knowledge, the lack of which has consigned us to the fringes, the world of the Outsider.

One practical note: clarks acquire knowledge because that is what they do. clarks are free with that knowledge and are more than happy to share it with one and all. Unfortunately, rogers consider knowledge to be… well, to be a well-kept secret and scotts, hey they found it first and sure, if you want to wrestle for it, that’d be fun.

The Everything Rule reminds us to consider that the very nature/character of knowledge is different for all three personality types. Fortunately, with the Wakefield Doctrine we are in a position to understand and appreciate what it is the other person is experiencing when we share knowledge.

Thanks Cynthia!

*lol, well, duh!
** to borrow from don Juan Mateus

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 13, 2018 By clarkscottroger

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

It is common knowledge among those who visit this blog more than twice* that I started it in order to expose the maximum number of people to the benefits of the Wakefield Doctrine.

As the years pass, I’ve pursued one ambition, to write the perfect Wakefield Doctrine post. It, (this perfect Wakefield Doctrine post), would be such that a Reader would, reading it but once, look around his or her world, (and the people who make it up), and apply the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine to their benefit.

So let’s try one this morning.

The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on life, the world and the people who surround us, as we navigate the course from our helpless births to our powerless deaths. The Wakefield Doctrine is a tool. A tool to aid the understanding of the afore-mentioned world, people and life, as well as a better understanding ourselves. (Tools are funny things. Our world is crowded with those offering to sell us tools. Before signing up for the 3 Easy Payment Plan, we would be well-served to remember our experiences as young children when encountering tools. I, for one, still believe that a hammer can work on a screw; if the need is strong enough or the patience limited. lol)

The Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that we are, all of us, born with the potential to experience life in one of three characteristic realities. The world of the Outsider(clarks), that of the Predator(scotts) and the life of the Herd Member(rogers). At a very early age, we settle into one of these three. We grow and mature, learning and developing strategies for interacting with the world.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that, even though we all settle into one (and only one) of these three worldviews, (Outsider, Predator, Herd Member), we retain the potential of ‘the other two’. This explains why sometimes, a person new to the Doctrine might say, ‘Hey! I know I’m a clark but there are times when I surely am a scott.’ At times of sufficient duress, we sometimes access the strategies and styles of ‘the other two’ in order to deal with the situation. (This, btw, is a total hint at the power of the Doctrine as a tool for self-improvement.)

The Wakefield Doctrine, at its heart, is all about ‘How we relate ourselves to the world around us‘. The wording is critical and quite deliberate. We are all used to the idea of ‘relating to the world’, our efforts to respond to the demands of daily life. We did not say that. What we said was, ‘How we relate ourselves to the world around us.’ The emphasis on the self is not as egocentric and self-absorbent** as it may sound. It is, rather, a call to know yourself.

So that’s the philosophical part. Now the fun part! How do you recognize the three personality types? wellll! Before I go into a ‘three part description, lets go simple(st): clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.

Of course, as we said, this is not about answering self-describing questions in the back of a magazine or on the facebook. This is about the identifying the reality that surrounds you or the person you are trying to understand.

clarks (Outsiders): self-effacing, shy, diffident and hopelessly rebellious. clarks live in the world of thought and ideas, knowledge and information, they are congenitally curious, and are heir to a wealth of facts of varying degrees of practical value. clarks will be found on the edges of the group, have a tendency to mutter and exhibit fairly poor posture, they are passive by choice (the saying is: ‘clarks abhor being the center of attention but will not tolerate being ignored’) Hopelessly creative, imaginatively self-destructive they make great friends and disappointing students/employees
scotts (Predators): aggressive, mercurial, confident and always on the move. The saying ‘Carpe diem’ applies to scotts both literally and figuratively.. they are the easiest of the three personality types to pick out… they are the ones at the center of a group (at least after they’re established their ranking among any other scotts in the area) and people like them, scotts are natural leaders because they are certain and have confidence, they don’t always have the best plan but they are the first in most situations to say ‘Follow Me!’ and most people do… off the cliff or into the New Frontier… doesn’t matter to the scott, all that matters is that they are acting and living life…now!
rogers (Herd Members): sociable, knowledgeable and always at home. those who grow up and develop their personality in the reality of the Herd Members have the advantage of certainty, they know they belong. rogers know that the world is a quantifiable place and that there is a Right Way (-to do things, to operate machinery, build a deck, cure a disease, raise a family) and their pride in being aware of this forms their attractiveness and lays the groundwork for their downfalls and setbacks. They are easy to talk to, socially confident and account for the present state of the ‘hard sciences’ especially engineering. Which is re-assuring as you travel thirty-five thousand feet above the ground. (scottian engineers are easily distracted and might be in the break room with the newest intern when it was time to re-check the calculations for the airframe of the newest jet and clarklike engineers….well, there’s that thing about 2 + 2*** so maybe it’s good that, with their dislike for mathematics, the percentage of aeronautical engineers who are clarks is fairly small.)

There you have it.

* once is accidental, twice is ‘did that site really claim to know more about me than I know about myself?!’ but three times is the charm, the curse and an indication of either: a) predominant clarklike worldview or 2) a significant secondary clarklike aspect. in either of these cases, we say, ‘welcome’

** one of my favorite ‘rogerian expressions’. Beyond the scope of a post. Go look it up.

*** ask a scott, “How much is 2 + 2? And, after making a joke, they’ll laugh and say ‘I’ll tell ya later’. ask a roger the same question and they will say, “4” (No comment, question or even emotion. It’s just a fact of life.) Pose this question to a clark, “How much is 2 + 2?” and their likely response will be something like “In what context?”

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- (” why, no, we did not overlook the kitchen sink… its in there somewhere”)

August 11, 2018 By clarkscottroger

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

Saturday and all the ushers have all gone home to bed*…

Warning: the Wakefield Doctrine has always viewed the ‘strange and unusual’** as the stuff of TToT posts. This weekend’s post is no exception.

Before we begin, surely a primordial Grat Item must be Kristi, our host. As I’ve said before, the role (and job) of host to any bloghop is a daunting (and exhausting) undertaking; riding herd on the gathering of words (‘Decem Rerum Laetis”) contributed by bloggers from across the globe, is no easy task. Thanks, Kristi (lets just give you Item number…. …hmmm Chodsky Pes… spouse… ‘remarkable insight into the nature of people and the world’…. lets go with Item 4! perfect (’cause as we all know, if asked the question, “How much is 2 + 2?” rogers will answer ‘4’ every single time. With total certainty.)

1) Una (photo above)

2) Phyllis (photo above)

3) the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers). As we know, the Wakefield Doctrine is, among other things, a very useful tool for self-improving oneself. This, in part, due to a central premise that while we all live in one of the three characteristic realities (that of the Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) and the Herd Member(rogers), we retain the potential inherent in ‘the other two’. The effect and benefit of this is that, unlike many other self-improvement systems, the Doctrine allows that I do not need to learn anything totally new in order to improve (whatever it is I believe I need to improve about myself). I simply need to look within. If, for instance, I wanted to be less toxically-self-effacing, I need only find my inner scott. Or, were I to seek to communicate with others on a more self-assured basis, ‘calling all rogers…calling all rogers‘. The idea is that I have those qualities that are exhibited in all three personality types, as potential. Of course I have not practiced (those ways of relating to the world), so there is much work to put in for these new behaviors to manifest. The critical point is: new and improved as these changes might be, they are not artificial and they are not a mask that I wear to convince the world I’m something that I am not. Merely another aspect of who I have been all along. ya know?

Example: This video. lol… I totally botched the ‘holding forth with a concise and compelling explanation of the Wakefield Doctrine’ intent of the video. However… that last five or six seconds made me laugh (again)… so despite my clarklike aversion to looking silly in front of people (self-improvement item 3.23.4) here is a Walk with Una.

4) Kristi blogger, Graviteer, hostinae and runner-of-remarkable-distances

5) the Writer’s Club

6) Step-almost-the-last of getting a new generator for the house. (The past year had, rough estimate, 3 weeks of no power due to downed lines from storms and wind and odd-tree-disease. Our old generator has a pull start. I’m not, despite the maturity evidenced in the above, getting any younger. Hence the automatic generator.)

7) Cynthia (and John) who may still be out there, in the world,*** stalking the frontier-lands for insight and enlightenment. Hey! guys!

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE (Apply Within Comments. Like to participate but feel that a list of Ten (or so) Things of Thankful is a bit too stressful, at least for the first foray? Send it on in (through Comments) and I’ll be happy to post it here with full attribution.

9) Sunday Supplement

10) Secret Rule 1.3

* a lyrics mashup of Wind Cries Mary and Bold as Love (citations below)

** Rod Serling in countless intros to Twilight Zone episodes. The show itself a perfectly preserved example of the mass-market culture’s view of the country’s tolerance for entertainment creeping in from the edge of suburbia.

*** a total indicator of a clark personality type. clarks are the only one of the three who, upon waking and considering the tasks of the coming day, put it all in the context of dealing with the world ‘out there’.

Music Mash-up:

(Disclaimer: I did not compose or record the following music (…no kidding) and do not own the rights to any of them (“well, duh… if I owned a tenth of a percent of the rights to any of these I’d be dictating this post from the deck of my boat, now wouldn’t I?) Please go to your record store and buy the music so that the composer (or whoever does own the rights) will enjoy the benefits of your… enjoyment).

Beethoven (1893)

Advertisement by Filmack (1953)

https://youtu.be/hjB5gjTEEj8

Jimi Hendrix: Wind Cries Mary

Jimi Hendrix: ‘Bold as Love’

https://vimeo.com/230228225

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, three personality types, Understanding Human Behavior

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 9, 2018 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Six Sentence Story

Each week we look and see what prompt word is being held up, like a mirror in the hands of a mischievous astronomer. Ever aware of the sun, the mirror captures our attention only to spin off a glint of insight, often powerful enough to stun the un-wary writer.

This week, Denise suggests that we take the word ‘SIGN’ and write a story around/about/against/and in reference to… in Six (and only) Six Sentences. No more. No less.

Prompt word:

Sign

It was late-early morning, an indisputably perfect time on a summer-pleasant Wednesday when the engine of his car, responding to the solid-state wink of the ignition button, succeeded in locking the sole of the man’s right foot in a Vulcan mind-meld; very soon thereafter the car rolled out of the garage. With the first spin of the electronic mood-roulette of the radio, he decided on the back road rather than the interstate; it would seem that Henry David had beaten George Jetson for shotgun, the quiet woods and two-lane path promised an opportunity to reflect on the approaching day.

The price of eliminating the barriers between himself and the passing New England woodlands, despite how often he indulged the allure of an open-air trip, always startled the driver. An invisible pillow-fight immediately broke out behind his head, ruffling his hair with chaste glee as hundreds of invisible pillows appeared and instantly vanished like soft neutrinos.

Just beyond his left elbow (that held the window down in its narrow grave), over the tops of moss-softened stone walls, the manicured greenery of the local country club passed smoothly and he watched the movers and shakers of the local business community getting in an early 18, their silent golf carts scurrying like ants on a white tuxedo.

The hood of the car showed the road ahead, like a mirror in a Victorian parlor, an alternate universe, forever trapped in the clear coat that mesmerized to the point that he almost drove through the intersection; saved at the last-minute by modern Public Works Department alchemy manifested in the red and white octagon, his imagination vandalized the sign, and, now seeing the word ‘POST’ the man laughed and said to no one, “I believe I will.”

I have, of late, searched for music to include that might serve to enhance the enjoyment of reading. This particular music vid is, however, for an entirely different Six. One that ended up on the ‘cutting room floor’ to borrow an expression from a different art.

In any event, it’s a good song. From way back! (That is if you listened to the record fresh from its shrink-wrap.)