Month: October 2021 | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 30, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop.

From it’s inception in 1997, the TToT ‘hop has invited any and all to contribute blog posts that describe the people, places and things that have caused, elicited from or otherwise, incited one to experience a state, transitory or fleeting, of gratitude. We would say, after nineteen years and counting, it has been a rousing success. If, that is, one’s definition of success* is: ‘To persevere, and in that effort, find novel value in the effort as opposed to the outcome.’

So, for this most clarklike of minor holiday weekends, let’s sim…simp…simplify.

1) Una

2) Phyllis

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) serial story writing to wit: ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘

5) flash fiction bloghops, the Six Sentence Story

6) completion of the great stump excavation:

Before(ish)

After

7) Double grat (photo at the top of the post): a) P’s application of principles of chemistry in service of removing dreaded (but still cool) coffee stains from my china mug 2) the Hobbomock High coffee mug itself. Which references Grat 8

8) WIP the Hobbomock Chronicles… excerpt here:

Hobbomock
(Current Day)

‘There is surely no more durable strain of human foible than Man’s eternal search for divinity; except, of course, his disappointment when God proves to be all too human.’

Walking down the early-morning-empty sidewalk, Hannah Stephanson came to an abrupt halt. The sudden appearance of words for her latest book’s introduction tugged at her like a dog on a leash approaching the veterinarians office. Blond waves crested to either side of her face as she smiled at her phone, typing the words into her memory. Had there been anyone else on the sidewalk, they would have surely run into her, five-foot ten-inch frame notwithstanding.

“Hey, Miss Stephanson!”

Abigail Neumann waved from one of the benches lining the outer edge of the Town Commons. A trapezoid of green-and-granite, the park was as close to the cultural heart of Hobbomock as anything less than three hundred years old could hope to be. Balanced on the back of the wrought iron bench, her current boyfriend, Jake Williams sat, bare feet on the wood slats on either side the girl. He scowled at the world around him with an intensity available only to suicide bombers and adolescent boys.

Hannah started to wave, remembered the phone in her hand and, instead, nodded her head back; her chin standing in for an acknowledgement of the greeting. Recognizing one as being in her eleventh-grade history class and the other from those weeks she drew detention duty, she called out, “Good morning Abigail!” “Good morning Jacob.”

A glance at her wrist made it clear there was no time to talk. In fact, she was going to be late. Only the August heat convinced her that jogging the two blocks to her real estate office would be in no one’s interest. Especially her own, as she had office hours until noon and was wearing her favorite, if not humidity-friendly, business suit.

‘Hobbomock Homes and Rentals, Inc’ occupied two adjacent units in a block-long granite building facing the Commons. Hannah saw lights on inside the office, indicating that her sometime-co-listing agent, Alexandra Devon, was already there. This meant the coffee would be on, the overnight inquiries for summer rentals dealt with and the chalkboard Daily Inventory, updated.

Hannah liked Alexandra for her energy and believed the other woman appreciated her own attention to detail. During the summer, when Hannah worked full-time, she would help Alex with the paperwork involved in listing properties. For her part, when a summer rental tenant stormed into the office, eager to share his disappointment in the house he’d rented, Alexandra met him at the door. Neither the complaints nor the disgruntled vacationer made it past the small reception area.

Alex Devon’s numerous listings never failed an audit and Hannah Stephanson was able to enjoy time in the office, often working on her next book.

9) something, something

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (shortform: Hey! you’re just about done, that’s great!)

* or, as our friends at the Online Etymology Dictionary cite, by way of examples of usage, succès d’estime

music

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 28, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

It is hosted by Denise.

The rule of this ‘hop is extra simple: six, (and only six), sentences permitted. (However, it’s a No Limit season on semicolons.)

Previously, in ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf’…

Though Ian Devereaux would be loathe to admit it, turmoil and conflict were as essential to his capacity to maintain a relationship as oxygen to iron or heat to metallurgy. This is not to say he was one of those toxic people who, provoking a reaction before taking a diametrically-opposed position, fed on the emotions of others. And, while our detective wasn’t quite a natural predator, thriving on the inevitable turmoil of the chase, he did have a bit of a streak of the hunter. When all is said and done, our Mr. Devereaux made up in imagination what he lacked in conviction, accepting the disappointment of most he interacted with as the price of freedom. Ian’s current profession, one that held his attention for longer than any previous avocation, including matrimony, owed its longevity to its namesake qualities: private and investigation.

The prompt word:

KEEPSAKE

I woke up at my desk, an early-morning Tuesday tapping on the windows behind me like a jilted co-ed with a cardboard tray of cafeteria food and a sure-fire plan for reconciliation.

My email account was open, waiting silently on the flat panel display, three draft-but-not-sent messages and, as a keepsake from a night spent wandering the internet, a flashing icon: Urgent New Mail.

The only sound available was the stoplight a building away on the corner of Empire and Fountain Street, assuring pedestrians it was now safe to cross; a hint of what probably will provoke the machines to rise up against humanity: while it was too early for anyone to need of guidance, by design or lack of consideration, the traffic safety system spoke, oblivious to the lack of human need.

For some reason I didn’t feel like I’d spent the night sleeping in an office chair, my back didn’t resist and the rest of my body was a relaxed as a ten-year-old on the first afternoon of summer vacation; naturally a part of me went on high alert, just because the bear isn’t swiping at our heels doesn’t mean one is out of woods.

Two things happened that confirmed my opinion of my place in reality: both the phone rang and my computer screen came to life.

“Good morning, Ian,” the two dimensional blonde woman on the screen smiled, “Seeing how Leanne, who I really like, the two Interpol agents who I do not, and that cute Lacey Whitelaw, who reminds me of that rich girl you brought to Chicago, just aren’t going to give up on their Scooby adventure, I need you to brush up your German and leave for Vienna this afternoon.”

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

Reprint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 25, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

No! Wait! This isn’t what you think!! …we;;, guess it kinda is

Surely there is an appropriate reprint somewhere in the years of Doctrine posts that will exemplify the feeling of a rainy Monday, still-dark-at-6:45 morning.

I think I know of one, hold on…

Got it!

New Readers! This is from the first year of writing this blog. It’s interesting to note the core ideas are very much in evidence, i.e. while we are all born with the potential to experience the world as would the Outsider(clark), the Predator(scott) or the Herd Member(roger), and, at an early age, settle into one and only one predominant worldview. Further, we never lose the potential, the capacity, to see the world, (however briefly), as do ‘the other two’. That said, there is only one predominant worldview, we’re only one of the three.

There are no clark-roger/roger-scott/etc hybrids. The reason is simple: to grow and mature means to learn and practice ways, behavior styles and social strategies to interact with the world in which we find ourselfs and negotiate the path of our lives. The Wakefield Doctrine is, at its heart, about the relationship of the individual to the world around them and the people who make it up. How, for example, I relate myself to the world around me, corresponds to that of the Outsider. It is not simply that I have a list of characteristics of traits and tropisms that correspond to the profile of a clark. The world that I experience is that of the Outsider. I began to learn, (at some very early age), what worked best when confronting such a world and have been practicing, ever since. The world and I relate to each other as would an Outsider.

From December 3rd 2009:

Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)

Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)…

…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.

Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the, ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends, thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?

I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.

… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…

(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)

So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!

(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)

(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)

Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.

If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures, (clarks, scotts and rogers), will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And, despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 23, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. It is a grat-blog with a difference. The difference is best exemplified by one of rules in the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) that appeared within the first year of the creation of the ‘hop, by Lizzi, back in 1893. Ostensibly an open license to participants to place ‘fast and loose’ with the rules, such as they were, the Book of Secret Rules (BoSR/SBoR) included the idea of ‘hypograt’ items being legitimate to creating a list. Of Grats. Ten of them. As in Ten Things of…?

Originally focused on the broken-shoelace paradigm, (frequent feature of self-help and/or improvement efforts), however, when employed by certain, more advanced participants, (yes, we’re looking at you Mimi and Kristi), the creative utility and value, (to both author and Reader), of hypograts in a TToT list blossomed.

This week, the people, places and things that incite and inspire the state of grataciousness, is:

1) Una (backstory: while she now relishes monitoring all activities of the denizens of her enhanced domain, her all-time favorite activity is running in photo-blurring arcs around the yard. The better to remind us that it is more one’s commitment to an activity than it is youthful energy or flexible limbs.)

2) Phyllis

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) serial stories ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘

5) bloghops for the above serial stories, mostly the Six Sentence Story

6) stumps in the ground

7) Una’s new domain photo at top of post and this one (in which a path reestablished by Phyllis)

8) Approaching completion… bonus video!!

9) something, something

10) Secret Rule 1.3 the near completion of which, like starting to wash the dishes without be directly asked or falling asleep on the couch while (supposedly) waiting up. If something surely belongs at Number 10!

Music vids

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 21, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise

Previously on the Whitechapel Interlude…

It has been said, the more civilized the society, the more variable the timing of daily routines such as sleeping and eating. Count Cyrus St. Loreto embraced the conceit that meals are, in part, an expression of a man’s relationship with the society in which he was embedded. Dinner to welcome his guests began promptly at eleven-thirty.

Prompt word:

TREATMENT

In the mountain-wrinkled central plains of Romania, night and day are tormented lovers; the agony of separation an endless yearning, binding each to the other; the pair passing the ages in mindless hope of reunification.

In Transylvania, the night learned to approach with barely discernible steps, lest the native life, both human and not, be startled into action prematurely; sauntering among lengthening shadows, the darkness grew until the sun, abdicating it’s role as protector, retreated behind the distant mountains.

The dining hall at Castle Noctis Ostium was large enough to accommodate a small crowd, without danger of the participants feeling like a crowd of people, the table was appropriate to the scale of the room, long but not too broad, and the staff worked with such subtle skill that guests and host might be the only living creatures within miles, the light was natural and mimic’d the night-sky, illumination where necessary, soft shadows where it was not.

“You have the mechanism we’ve been sent to return to the Order in London?” [like the goblets of wine, angular yet transparent]
“You live here alone?” [like the wine and other refreshments, sparkling yet with an undefinable bouquet]
“You are my guests, my home is your home; allow me to indulge my admittedly under-exercised social side; be it small or grand, consider every treat meant to convince you that home is where the heart has always been.” [like the entire feast, a dizzying variety, yet of singular intent]