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

The value of reprinting old posts lies in stimulating contemporary reflection on principles that, while timeless, acquire additional value in context and style; the context being the present and the style being whatever manifests in the present, a changing value like a running total in an excel sheet.

(From 2014)

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

hey! Friend of the Doctrine Kristi writes:

“Is it totally normal for Clarks, as they get older, to not worry about being an outsider so much? Because I feel like I don’t care about that part these days. I might just be tired though…”

Very provocative question! I can think of two ‘answers’. As with (most) things Doctrine, the real value, however, is to be found in how the Question/Answer, manifests (in my worldview or your worldview)  The coolest thing about this here personality theory here, is that without fail, anytime I try to apply its principles to a situation, a problem, a hypothetical or I-need-to-know,  I learn something new about myself.

Answer 1)  yes. as we grow older, many of us clarks find that we don’t care so much about our status as Outsiders. (Here it is important to remember the Wakefield Doctrine‘s rather unique approach to personality types and behavior, i.e. we clarks are Outsiders in our own personal reality.¹) The thing of it is, as we get older, our interests and passions become less…varied. We like what we like and are less inclined to seek the new, the different, the maybe-this-will-be-different-and-I-won’t-feel-so-not-a-part-of-everything. Not saying that this is a bad thing. Hell, of the three worldviews, we are the most curious and (most) likely to discover the unique and strange things in the world around us. (As clarks) we also have a tendency to encounter situations that, perhaps, our scottian and rogerian family members and friends would not… to the extent that, as young(er) clarks, we often hear, ‘you did what?!  you hangout with who??!’   (of course, we hear those alarmed statements and feel just the glimmer of pride, that we are doing something that, by all indications, the real people in our lives would not ever try to do.)

…but there is still, the fear.

Answer 1.b) when we are young clarks, we are not as accomplished at disguising our Outsider nature. fear is a wet army blanket, big, cumbersome and impossible to fold into an inconspicuous shape. As we grow and mature, we get better at negotiating with the fear. more sophisticated, if you will. But it is there. always.  not, at this point of our lives, is the fear always so obvious. what makes fear so insidious, at the later stages of a clark’s life is that it has become an integral part of the calculus of our interactions with the world around us.

Answer B)  many of us have learned at least part of the Answer that we have been seeking our entire lives.²  …. well, hell, spend a lifetime trying and even though it is a fundamentally flawed assumption, you are going to learn something about how to look and act and sound like everyone around you.

Answer 6) …besides, maybe we are getting old, but so are the scotts and rogers in our world… and I’ll let you in on a little secret Insider Doctrine wisdom, age is kinder to clarks than it is to scotts and rogers (which is as it should be….given that we started out our lives old.)

 

(hey!! I deny being, in any way, addicted to the stats. if no one comes to the Doctrine on a given day, means nothing at all to me! even if I don’t post new content!)

(…however.  I got a chuckle* out of zoe’s Post from yesterday, so if you are reading this, you should be reading this!)

 

* yes, that does totally identify me as an old person…

 

1) remember, the Doctrine seeks only to infer ‘how a person is relating themselves to the world around them’, identifying this relationship, will tell us if they are living in the world of the Outsider or the Predator or the Herd Member… once this is correctly inferred, we know all about ya. The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that: if you grown up, mature and develop in the (personal) reality of  the Outsider, then you will tend to make certain decisions, prefer certain approaches to life situations and act a certain way, because it is the best coping strategy, (aka personality type), given the world you exist in. The same applies to those who develop in the world of the Predator or the reality of the Herd Member. Personality type, for the Wakefield Doctrine, is simply the characteristic coping strategies best suited to a given worldview.

2) clarks believe that there is something that they do not know about life that accounts for their not being like everyone else. clarks believe (consciously or not) that there is information, knowledge, fact (you know, rational stuff) that once learned, will allow them to be accepted into the company of ‘real people’.

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