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

Lizzi: “Clark, it’ll be easy, just look for things that you feel thankful for and write ten of them down..each week…”

This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop.

Created by Lizzi back in 1805, it is a gratitude bloghop unlike pretty much all others. It is, as some friends might say, ‘freedom hall’. No rules or requirements and interrupting others is permissible, provided it is with the intent of adding, (as opposed to subtracting, negating or otherwise being rude.)

This ‘hop has been going on, by current estimates, since we were all young people.*

It’s traditional on these anniversary affairs to relate some anecdote about things and events that occurred back at the beginning. Lots of things come to mind. I found an early post and have the link down there at Item Seven.

As to amusing and/or insightful insights, I’m drawing a blank.

I will, however, say this: in the very beginning of this thing, when I first met Lizzi, (we both participated in the Finish the Sentence Friday bloghop (hey!! Kristi))… I started hanging around ‘the Considerer’, her own blog. Because of this I had the privilege of witnessing the creation of this here bloghop here. Few people in this virtual place that have made me say, “Damn!” Lizzi is one of them.

What makes me say, ‘Damn!’ is that she created this long-running, very successful bloghop at a time she was getting two or three comments on her posts at her blog. There were no medallions or linkysys connections or Facebook groups or nothing. Just a woman determined to not wait on someone else to change her life. Through her efforts to find the path, she came across reliable sources insisting that gratitude was a key to positive change. So she began to post a gratitude list on her blog. Day after day. Week after week.

Two or Three comments by way of support.

That is how you build a bloghop that can last this long. Do it because you benefit from the effort, not because you have tons of followers cheering you on. Create something of value and they will come. Theres a classic choice in marketing strategy, two very fundamental rationales: Attraction or promotion. What Lizzi did was create something that attracts. ‘way better.

1)  Phyllis ↓

2) Una                                                                 ↑

3) the Wakefield Doctrine   ‘sine qua, y’all, sine qua’

4) Lizzi   a credit to her people.**

5) “…of new gardens and lawns with thistles about, a flag that waves from a tree-house redoubt”:

6) Josie Two-Shoes and Kristi.  Josie picked up the baton first and Kristi has been maintaining a place that is. at once, entertaining and supportive for all who would join in this weekly exercise.

7) Technology and such. Here is a post, from the before time This TToT post

8) Having a job/profession/business that a)according to the definitions of the State of Rhode Island is essential so that 2)I have been allowed to wander the streets in my car, at an unprecented time, where highways are too big for traffic and people are (or were, in the early days of the ‘demic), polite and kept a clarklike distance.

9) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE try it out! send in a grat in a comment, I’ll totally post it here.

10) SR 1.3 from the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules): “…when your thoughts begin to take on a Times Roman rigidity and show the typographic frivolity of italicization, as you pass Item Five (or maybe even Item Seven)… that feeling of ‘Whew! Made it one more week!’ is totally entitled to be designated Item Ten …X …10 go ahead close that decade.”   er… ibid, op. cit.

music vids:

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* I would put my own effective age upon arriving as somewhere between thirteen and “Why the hell is AARP sending me this stuff?!!” We washed ashore (this space for your preferred metaphor) and met others of like mind. And did stuff.

** this kind of statement always takes me back to the early days of the Wakefield Doctrine blog… oh, the fun we had  (New Readers? no, nothing bad, but ya gots to do your reading if’n you want to maximize your enjoyment of this blog.)