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

The Wakefield Doctrine is a tool for understanding the world around us and the people that it is full of. The actual wording is, ‘…to see the world as the other person is experiencing it.‘

Note the word ‘experiencing’. We don’t mean: ‘how the other person sees it’ nor do we intend to suggest that the Doctrine will help focus on: ‘the things that matter to this other person’. We seek to appreciate nothing less than: How they are experiencing it.

Lets say you and I stood on the side walk across the street from Milliways. It’s not simply that you and I are observing disparate elements of this famous restaurant’s structure (and signage, exterior lights and, even, the people walking into and out of the establishment). The Doctrine maintains that the restaurant manifests differently for each of the two of us.

Damn! I am way out of shape when it comes to reducing a life-encompassing perspective into a couple of paragraphs (and some clever, throw-away lines).

In any event.

Today’s post is about the difficulties we encounter when we strive to self-improve ourselves. Simply put: the world, our lives, the expectations of those around us, both collectively and individually, resist any effect to stray from the path/style-of-interacting-with-the-world we’ve established. Furthermore, this resistance will involve experiencing potentially negative feelings and emotions*. All intended, of course, to break our resolve and, failing that, serve as a noxious warning against any future attempts on the primacy of the status quo.

One of the things about the Wakefield Doctrine, as a tool for self-improving ourselfs, is that helps a lot is the matter of ‘the other two’.

According to the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers, we’re all born with the potential to experience the world in one three characteristic ways: as an Outsider(clarks), a Predator(scotts) or as a Member of the Herd(rogers). We, all of us, at a very early age settle into one of these three and develop our strategies for interacting with the world appropriate to …where we find ourselves. The thing is, we never lose the capacity to experience the world as do ‘the other two’. I’m a clark (Outsider predominant worldview) with a secondary scottian aspect (vestigial claws and the occasional impulse to chase things that seem to be fleeing) and marginal rogerian tertiary (put a thumbtack on my chair and every 10¹³ times, rather than run at you or away from you, I might sit and cry and/or find another empty seat to put the tack.)

So when I set out today to improve (which for me means developing my rogerian and scottian aspects), I dread but am not surprised when I find my head swell(ing) up and my face fall(ing). This feeling of projectile self-consciousness is almost always a reaction to noticing myself acting ‘out of character’, i.e. in a manner typical of a roger or a scott.

That is reality’s method of keeping me on script. I got no business feeling comfortable as a part of a group of people, I run an extreme risk when I relax and act like I don’t need to hide and I totally am at hazard when I act impulsively and ‘all-up-and-in-the-face’ of those around me.**

Except that I do anyway. And that’s because I believe that, from the perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine, I have the potential to interact with the world as do my scottian brothers and sisters and I inherently possess the credentials to stand stolidly in the middle of the Herd and know that I belong.***

So now it’s time to head out into reality (lol) and practice.

* not quite the same thing(s). but you knew that

** New Readers: …because I’m a clark and, for a clark, the thing we spend our lives avoiding is scrutiny. Now go and read some more posts and it’ll totally make sense.

*** Full Disclosure:  sorta… got to keep in mind that, speaking for myself, I’ve spent my life (from when I was just a wee, little 89 year old boychild) practicing the ways of the Outsider. As it should be. After all, the Doctrine maintains that personality types is not a description of traits and inclinations and such, as it is understanding how the other person is relating themselves to the world around them.