Hello
As the ‘About’ page of most blogs is, for the New Reader/Accidental Visitor, the second-most read (and the shortest-time spent) location, allow us to go the beginning of the story. (Despite this edit taking something like ten years to appear, this approach really seems to make sense. Ah well, for some of us, insight might seem instant, the capability to effectively tell the story, perhaps a little more drawn out.
Following is the ‘eureka moment‘ for the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers (the Wakefield Doctrine):
In the early 1980’s, Scott (the progenitor scott) worked at a music store in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He was the only full-time salesman and (also) ran the store’s repair department. In addition to musical instruments, the store provided repair services for a wide range of electronic equipment, including tape recorders and other audio equipment.
One day I happened to stop by the store to visit. While there, a young man walked into the store, went directly to the ‘repair department’ where Scott and I were talking and without preamble placed a ‘dual cassette recorder’ on the counter. A dual cassette recorder was designed to allow one cassette to be copied directly to another, what today we would call, making a back up. The controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ consisted of two sets of tape recorder controls: Volume, Treble and Bass. Where it differed from a single recorder was that it also had a Master Volume control. As the name implies it controlled the volume level, for both recording and playback. The tape recorder the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and showed no signs of damage or abuse. I stepped back, Scott looked up and said, ‘What can we do for you’? The customer said, “This thing is brand new, it worked for a couple of days, then it stopped working entirely. I can’t figure out what’s wrong”.
Scott looked at the device for a second, then, without a word, reached under the counter, brought out a roll of black electrical tape, and, tearing off a 2 inch piece, taped over the Master Volume control (after returning the dial to it’s highest setting). He then slid the device back over the counter and said, “There, it’s all right now.”
The customer asked to plug in the recorder. Taking a cassette from his pocket he put in the machine and ran it through it’s paces. Satisfied that his ‘broken tape recorder’ now worked like new, he thanked Scott and walked out of the store, a totally satisfied customer.
My reality shifted. For reasons unclear to this day, although I observed what scott saw as to the nature of the problem with the dual cassette recorder, I realized that the character of his solution implied a reality, a ‘context’ that was clearly different from mine. At that moment I came to believe the personal reality that I experience as I went about my life was not necessarily the exact reality of anyone else. That the manner in which Scott perceived the ‘problem’ was fundamentally different from the way I witnessed it.
From that moment, standing in a small music store in Pawtucket, I’ve been observing the behavior of others knowing with the conviction that what I could see was not necessarily what they are experiencing. That, in fact, all reality is personal to a small, but significant degree, personal.
This blog is all about: ‘Can I find a way to better see the world as the other person is experiencing it?. And, (through this effort), ‘Can I improve and enhance how I relate myself to the world around me and the people who make it up?‘
Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (already in progress…feel free to wander around)
