Psychology | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 50 Psychology | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 50

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- “…of Heroes and the MisUnderstood” [Part 1.0]

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

This is our contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, governed by simple rule: ‘Do it in Six or don’t do it at all.’

Tom and I are writing a Serial Six Sentence Story: ‘…of Heroes and the MisUnderstood‘. (If you’re just starting, then this link will provide the whole story.)

If, however, you’ve been following along, here are Tom’s most recent, which serve as a lead-in: ‘Two Sides‘ and ‘Svikja‘.

Prompt word:

BANK

“Hey, doll, not for nothin’ but I’m pretty much a third-date-before-the-slings-and-trapeze come out, kinda guy,” I was doing my best to lighten up the not-so-funny turn of events as my former captive-chick snapped a final lock on the harness I let her put me in; she immediately waved up at the helicopter hovering in the dark-and-rainy night sky.

Getting hoisted into the sky at gun point wasn’t entirely without redeeming value, given the panoramic view I had of my recent crash-on-a-deserted-London street experience; I could see Rue being bundled into the front passenger seat by the guy who kinda seemed to set off the whole evening action sequence, but setting aside my growing resentment, I called down as he raced around the front of the SUV and the driver’s side door;

“Hey, Moonbeam, take good care of my friend there and, as my boss, Lou, has been known to advise, ‘When everything’s gone to hell, your best bet is to do the opposite of what your rational brain is telling you; it’ll surprise the other guy and chances are they’ll be aiming right where you’re not’.”

The guy gave me a ‘thumbs up’ like in some 1940s war movie; I couldn’t help but think that maybe, if I had rays coming out of my hands, I’d be kinda trying to fuck up the rocket launcher or the helicopter, you know, mess up their night too, but then thought, different strokes for different folks; I did manage a kind of salute, but by then they’d disappeared down the deserted street in the direction opposite the rocket launcher.

Turning my attention to my little Dom, I realized that after securing my harness, she went and climbed on my back with her left hand to a spare strap, like a subway rider but with an added personal touch of wrapping her legs around my waist.

“There is a God,” I laughed, twisting the harness in such a way that we were face-to-face; never one to underestimate the power of spontaneous romance in my never-ending effort to learn what it is a woman wants, but, as God is my witness, I’d swear I saw a corner of her mouth twist upwards.

My positive vibes disappeared as the helicopter started to bank in the direction opposite where Moonbeam had driven; all I could think was how Lou was gonna react when he got the news that I managed to let Rue get kidnapped right in front of me; it killed my mood faster than a bunch of parents showing up a day early for Parent/Student weekend at a coed college dorm.

 

 

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Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

As promised, a continuation of yesterday’s post.

Before we get to that, see that first, uncharacteristically-brief sentence?

(Oh, man! Don’t get us started on diagraming sentencesese! The snow-melty March afternoons spent in English class. ‘Would anyone care to come up to the board and diagram this sentence?’)

That would have been among the first instances where our people began to recognize a potential value to (our) marginal social standing when in the company of ‘real’ people, aka other kids. Unlike like scotts and rogers who would, in this classic situation be: throwing pieces of soft-gum erasers at classmates, hoping to startle them into drawing the teacher’s attention or passing a note to someone insisting that yet another pupil was really gross… respectively. Some of the (small number) of sixth graders who were clarks would look directly towards the front of the class, all alphabet-bordered, black-slate-with-yellow-drifted-chalk-trough and simply not be there. And, such is life, more often than not, the teacher would call on someone else.

The sense of relief at avoiding fear was twinged by a sadness that would take a lifetime for the young Outsider to acknowledge.

….damn! Where were we??!

oh yeah!  What about that business of translation, vocabulary and fluency in the context of the value of the Wakefield Doctrine. Will it really allow us to better/more effectively/less clumsily interact with the world around us (and the people who make it up)?

That the Wakefield Doctrine’s system of three personality types is, at first blush*, simply one more perspective on the world is pretty obvious. That there is a logical, accessible and effective method which might be applied to a person’s efforts to self-improve themselves is guaranteed . With a certain amount of imagination and discipline**.

 

* cool idiom, no? damn! here, this from the opening paragraph:

The verb to blush can be traced back to the Old English ablysian. …usually in glosses of Latin psalters. For instance, there is this tenth century gloss of Psalms 6:11:

ablysigen ł scamien & syn drefed ealle fynd mine syn gecerred on hinder & aswarnien swiþe hredlice ł anunga

(Let all my enemies blush / be ashamed & be troubled, let them be turned back & be confounded very quickly / rapidly)

We did say, damn! did we not? Remind us to continue with this in tomorrow’s post.

** hey, no! not nearly the oil-water combo we’re indoctrinated to believe.

 

Hey! shout out to Nick for the suggestion (in a sense) of today’s music vids. You should check out his art-stuff1 v taliento!

 

1) technical art term

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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘remind us to complete this post tomorrow!’

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

They don’t call it RePrint Monday for nothin’

But wait! Wait!

Once again validating the RePrint approach to self-prompting for topics of post, see that photo above?

That was the image we used on the post we could not find this morning. (And still cannot, which means we’ll have to recreate it in the small amount of pre-dawn time left.)

So, it may have been before the concept of ‘the Everything Rule’ coalesced or, it might have been just afterwards, but we described, by way of illustration (and therefore, explanation) a scene:

a clark, a scott and a roger stand on the sidewalk directly across from a very popular restaurant at noon. On a Thursday. (Or Friday. Any day, except for Monday. Or Wednesday.) In any event, there is a line out the door and up the sidewalk.

In keeping with one of the stated goals/benefits of an understanding of the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine, what is it the three are seeing. More to our point, what are they  experiencing?

Take your time. If you run out of space, raise your hand and a proctor will provide you with an additional blue essay book.

Begin:

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “… of development, writers clubs and understanding the world around us.”

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

Do we outgrow the past or do we simply forget? Do the improvements, growth and developments we achieve (through effort, ambition and circumstance) become like, well, the way it is.

We admit to a fondness for the occasional peculiar word or phrases that, although uncommon in everyday conversation, are fun. Today (in light of the opening sentences) the fun word/phrase/expression is raison dêtre. (which our friends at wikipedia define as  “…a French expression commonly used in English, meaning “reason for being” or “reason to be”.”)

The Wakefield Doctrine is the reason for the existence of this blog. All, and only, because it hit me one night that it would be good to ‘formalize’ my personal system for explaining the world and the people in it.

The Wakefield Doctrine holds that we are, all of us, born with the potential to experience the world as one of three characteristic realities. At an early age we ‘pick’ one of these three ‘worldviews’ and we are on our way to becoming clarks, scotts or rogers. The Wakefield Doctrine, as a personality ‘theory’, is not concerned with how you would describe yourself, the results of questionnaires created to identify traits and interests or even what you think that girl is doing sitting out there in the middle of the field looking back towards the house filled with people she may or may not be related to (well, sometimes we enjoy the traditional approaches; I mean, damn! give yourself away in one description much, clark? lol). Unlike other tools developed by psychology, sociology and phrenology, tools easily transposed to popular media such as ‘the Face Book’ where they lie, attractively packaged, club-shaped mirrors waiting for someone to notice, “Oh, honey! Come here! I found this personality test in my magazine and it so has you down to a T! Lets take it together. You first.”

Central to the hypothesis of the Wakefield Doctrine is the notion that we all live in a reality that is, to a certain degree, personal. Nothing weird, mystical or magical. Simply that if you and I are standing in front of the entrance to, say, a very popular restaurant, our experience of that moment will not be identical. The Doctrine takes this and jumps up above the individual and says, ‘Suppose the world was one in which individuals are separated from each other in a way not easily discernible or, better still, imagine that the life we wake up into after each sleep is that of the Predator, simple and direct, eat or be eaten; or suppose everything in the world is knowable and, to a degree established in a way that allows for complete agreement among like-minded people, that the universe is, in fact, definable and quantifiable.’

This is key to understanding the Doctrine. Children (you, me and the girl behind the counter asking if that’ll be Regular or Premium) all grow and develop (their) personalities in order to successfully interact with the environment that surrounds them. Social, physical, the whole thing. And this is done in the context of the nature and character of the world, as they experience it. These strategies evolve and develop into the style we refer to as our ‘personality type’.

I grew up in the world of the Outsider (clark). I developed a way of relating to the people and the world around me that permits me to stay out of the limelight (can’t have people pointing at me and telling everyone that we don’t belong) while at the same time giving me the tools and the drive to search for whatever it was that I didn’t learn when I was too young to realize it i.e. how to be a real person.

A friend of mine grew up in the reality of the Predator (scott). She’s a lot of fun to be around, gets more done in a morning than most people do in a week. She is always on alert, never is not paying attention to whats going on around her and everyone likes her…except for the ones who are terrified of her. Temperament is often un-fairly pronounced with the accent entirely on the first syllable… we prefer the word: mercurial. You want something done right away, you ask her and step out-of-the-way.

If you want that thing done right… you find my friend who grew up in the life of the Herd Member (roger). He will know how to do it so that the joints line up, the glue doesn’t stick out at the ends and it stays the way it’s supposed to be… forever. He knows the simple fact of the life that there’s a Right Way.  No, nothing as an alternative, no second-runner-up. One way. Fortunately, my friend has so many other people around him that grew up knowing that they all belong. Sure there’s minor disagreements over decor, but it’s all one big hap…. Herd. The world is good. Just have to understand.

OK enough for a Monday morning.

 

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TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

Not the bridge in Grat #7. Someone else’s bridge, entirely

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s traditional contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop.

Readers? ‘This is a Grat bloghop’*. (A little football humor there.) Speaking of football, our founderess, Lizzi is reportedly exploring financing options in her quest to buy the Manchester Mandrakes. Of course, the game referred to as ‘football’ played in parts of the world  is not quite as formal as that which the source of our opening (and purely gratuitous**) quote.

Be that as it may, such an ambition is minuscule tubers when embraced by the woman who, when starting this blog, back in 1984, premiered with Fifty Things of Thankful. The collective ‘aiiyeee!’ from Blogville could be heard around the world). Fortunately for us, she relented and allowed us a break with a 20 percent reduction in list size. (No, our gift for math will not appear on the list today.)

The Doctrine offers the following list of people, places and things that have resulted in our experiencing gratitude-like subjective states.

1) Phyllis

Phyllis and Una in the (then) new treehouse.

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) the Six Sentence Story bloghop  This week’s pic of the sic: ‘A Long Ache‘ by Miskey

5) the Unicorn Challenge bloghop  This week’s Best-of-the-‘corn: Margaret‘s ‘Beach holiday

6) our co-writ, Serial Six, ‘…of Heroes and the MisUnderstood’  (Tom being the writer of the cool Co-Ordination of Supervillains)

7) in the 10k dept

8) something, something

9) weather approaching ideal (ideal defined as: warm enough to sweat from minor exertion (without a coat) but cool enough not to wake certain, multi-legged creatures.)

10) Secret Rule 1.3

 

*Vince Lombardi

** that is how you play the Grat-blog game! booyah! (lol)

 

music

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Frides of Arch -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

Detail of the painting “God reprimanding Adam and Eve”, by F. Zampieri (1625)

 

Yeah, you are correct. You have scene the image above before. In one of our Unicorn Challenge posts. Superstition is the religion of the desperately unimaginative.

That being said, you do know what Friday means: ‘the Unicorn Challenge‘., do you not?  It is the day-of-the-week when jenne and ceayr go all ‘June and Ward Cleaver’ on the blogosphere and invite a small group of talented writers to get al TAT on the photo below.

Anyway. Two Hundred fifty words is what they allow us to write a story keying off the photo below.

Yeah? Well, no matter what that old saying, choice is curse of the Garden.

The man stood on the rock. The wind was calm, the sea was flat. The sky was a uniform, overcast grey; so much so, there was no horizon. Anywhere. In any direction, except landwards. The man had zero interest in that direction.

When there is no horizon, only gravity can provide direction. Taking the hint from this most fundamental of forces, the man looked down. Without a bright sun overhead, jealously casting reflections on anything it felt threatened by, he could see to the bottom. Like most of his world this particular morning, it consisted of unexceptional variations on the shade of grey. The exception to this almost blankscape were three red stars.

A phrase from a proverb, long favored by nuns charged with instilling the moral guilt demanded by Mother Church of it’s youngest, came, quite unbidden, “Well I made a difference to that one’.

The man laughed and nearly lost his balance. He noticed his rock pedestal was smaller. Time and Tide, he mused, time and tide.

Feeling his resolve recede, he glanced over the increasing gap between his stand and dry land. Let go, he thought.

On the shore, a boy’s voice met his thought, “Let go! I’ll throw” Childish laughter and wagging tail wrote a couplet of love and innocence as young human and ageless canine played on the beach.

He stepped into the ocean betting that solid land would welcome him.

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