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

For the conclusion of our story, permit me to go all ‘Third Person Omniscient Narrator’ on y’all.

First, a brief description of the worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine.

There are three in the Wakefield Doctrine. Others may call them personality types, we refer to them as either (one’s) personal reality or predominant worldviews. They are:

1. clarks (the Outsider) people who, well, live apart from… tempting to describe them as marginalized, but that would be too easy. clarks live as complete a life as do the other two, ‘cept, like we just said, apart. clarks see the world (and the people in it) as being ‘out there’. Not surprisingly, a large portion of a clark’s life is lived inside their heads
2. scotts (the Predator) people who experience the world as would any predator you might see on the Nature channel, or, if you’re of sufficient years, on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. these are the people who are ‘right there’. Unsurprisingly, all of a scott’s life is spent in the here and now
3. rogers (the Herd Member) people who are as, ‘a part of‘ as clarks are ‘apart from‘. rogers live in a reality that is, essentially, a matrix of emotion. rogers don’t see the world or act upon the world, as do clarks and scotts, respectively, rogers feel the world.

The experience that caused me to laugh out loud in the woods ended in a split second.

I looked at the tree. There was a large wedge missing in the center of the trunk.  If the tree had been alive, it would have broken by this point. (The fibers of a living tree stretch, the weight would have forced the wedge to close in on itself, fibers would break and tree would fall). I made a second cut on the underside, below the wedge. Unfortunately, the saw was too heavy and cumbersome to allow much more than a two-inch deep cut.

I knew I needed to somehow apply force to the tree. Motion or movement of any part of it would do. I couldn’t reach the top end. That left the base, which was buried in the ground. If I could lever the lower end upwards, the force would be transmitted up the trunk.

I got my trusty pry bar, (the green thing in the photo). I put a section of tree trunk (about the same diameter as the tree), right next to where the leaning tree entered the ground. Using and adjacent tree for balance, (yeah, ironic…or tragic or something), I stood on the free end of the pry bar.

The tree did not move but the bar did. Being from Y Chromia, I flexed my knees and bounced. The tree began to move. The force of my bouncing on the steel bar was transmitted up the trunk and the whole thing began to move. Like that bridge in Tacoma.

Ha!

I established what I hoped would be a rhythm I could build upon.

As I bounced on the bar, the trunk moved up and down in larger and larger movements. (For visual people, picture waves of force moving from the bottom of the tree to the top, like ripples on a pond. Except made of wood. And invisible.)

I heard a cracking sound. Me and my pry bar found ourselves one with the ground. No different than when, as children we accept an invitation to play on the teeter totter from another child who would we learn, later in life, was a scott. They always jump off their end without warning.

I stood on my pry bar. The far end was still under the tree trunk. A micro split second after the tree broke in the middle, the bar and I were on the ‘down end’ of the seesaw. The lower half of the trunk, still suspended in the air, weighed way more than me and my pry bar. It headed for the ground.

I felt the bar flex upwards. At this point my countless hours as a child in front of the television paid off. I immediately thought of Wile E Coyote. I pictured my trajectory, over the trunk and into the woods. Fortunately the ‘travel’ of the bar was not great enough to propel me more than a couple of inches through the air.

“Coming to rest on the floor of the forest, his pry bar in his right hand, the trees stood, silent honor guards, as the woodsman laughed and laughed.”