clarkscottroger | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 39 clarkscottroger | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 39

fff -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘here’s an Answer! …is this really an answer, or another trick to teach the Doctrine?’

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

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Outsider. This could be my motto for life. I’m surrounded by rogers and um…ya know…have figured out that the office environment…well…let’s just hope the rogers don’t gang up on me and kick my ass.

Thanks go out to our friend, Cynthia, for the ‘Friday Post Prompt’ (Friday Post Prompt motto: ‘thank god!! a coherent thought to base a Post on!!!”)

Is there any, more common reason, (for a clark) to like the Wakefield Doctrine, than it being a resource in figuring out how to deal with the rogers in their lives?  No. Well, maybe. No, yeah, but that business about how we can rest our brain even for a minute…. that qualifies, right?  (I remember being in a conversation one evening  with a group of people. We were having a good time with the Great Questions of Life.  There came a moment when the question of ‘communication between people’ rose to topic-level and, when there was one of those pauses in the give-and-take, (when the rogers are preparing their rebuttals and the scotts are calculating their chances of getting lucky after the intellectual  activities ceased), I made the following statement:  “I’ve always wondered what it is that real people do, with all that time in-between sentences.”  Had there been a person to throw a handle full of pins, everyone would have come up with the same number, …someone whispered, very loudly, ‘oh man!! what is it with this guy!!’ His tone was not negative, it definitely had a certain quality of ‘wonderment’… this was followed by good-natured laughter.

I identify with Cynthia. We are fortunate to have rogers who are of such a mind as to be willing and able to share with us their perspective, (thinking of Kristi and Michelle and Phyllis and even, accidentally Sarah), however, the solution to ‘Cynthia’s Problem’ is not in learning what the rogers want. The solution to the problem is for Cynthia to know what she wants.  You know how we have this saying for the New Readers, ‘the Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not them‘?   There is an extensionary thought* to be derived from this,  ‘It’s about us, not them.’
A clark lives in a reality where things should make sense, that there should be an understandable reason for everything. Where we clarks often get into trouble is when we project this (quality of understandable-ness) and believe that the ‘correct answer’ will be possible only with the participation of the real people in our world.   (Now, stay with me….)

We don’t believe us.

(That’s not fair. I should say: as clarks we don’t believe that what we understand is sufficient, unless it’s supported, corroborated, validated, confirmed and otherwise approved of, by the people around us.  You Advanced Readers are now looking around and waving your hands. “I know!!! I know”….  lets let the New Readers have a moment to figure out what is it about clarks that cause them to get trapped , despite the clear fact that they are thinking everything through in an organized and rational manner.)

I’ll be back a little later in the day.**

 

* an attempt at a rogerian expression1

** yeah, right

1) not to be confused with a person’s ‘rogerian expression

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Palimpsest Wednesday! -the Wakefield Doctrine- (yes, clark found a word that he liked, so of course he uses it non-appropriately!)

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

(why, yes! you do see a clark and a scott and a roger)

(why, yes! you do see a clark and a scott and a roger)

Hey, I have one of those ‘related Posts’ widgets and though there are times when it suggests Posts on the basis of being in English*, today I spotted one that I had forgotten I had written!** So, naturally I went and read it… well, yes, I skimmed it, but only to decide if I really liked it and then I went back and read it word for word… ok, most of it.
Funny about synchronicity (or just hanging out with a small group of people with similar interests,  that’s kinda synchronistic, right?) (As old Carl Jung was reputed to say, “Synchronizität? wie ‘ Bout, die Aufmerksamkeit auf was herum vor sich geht, und genug mit der Metaphysik bereitsstarten!“***

(from July 31 2011)

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

Two topics today: clarks and scotts

clarks: outsiders, mis-fits, creative, intellectual, rational, aloof, tireless workers, clarks are capable of imagining and creating anything and bringing it to others to experience

scotts: action-oriented, vivacious, instinct-driven, impulsive, natural leaders, full of energy and life, scotts will cause others to believe that actions can speak words

Today’s Post: The tale of The Rabbit in the Newspaper Box ( a story of a scott stepping into the world of a clark).

One un-seasonably mild March day, DownSpring glenn and I were driving along RI Route 1 in search of a golf course. Most of the better golf courses in the area were not fooled by the warm-spell and remained Closed for the Winter ( “See You Next Spring!”…spelled out in movable black letters below the Welcome Sign).  We were determined to find an open course, so we drove from the middle of Rhode Island to it’s southern end, searching for an open golf course.  By late morning we had still not found what we were looking for, not even a driving range was open.
Finally, admitting defeat we headed home, which required us to head up Route 1 North. The highway in this part of Rhode Island runs along the coastline. Far enough away from the water  to be a ‘real highway’ (not one of those scenic roads that force you to stop at every intersection with a Antique Shoppe, Seafood Restaurant  and Seven Eleven), yet close enough so that you could see the ocean as you drove up the highway. Route 1 in this part of the state was a ‘divided highway’; two lanes North with a grassy median divider of about 20′ and two lanes South. The median had turn-arounds every half mile or so, allowing a person to change their mind and head in the opposite direction, without wasting a lot of time.

As we drove north, we passed one of those coin-operated newspaper boxes, chained to a telephone pole. The box was bright yellow, about 4′ by 3′ with a Plexiglas window making up the top half, in order to display the Current Edition (of the Providence Journal). This design is intended  to catch the Summer Tourists in a hurry to get to the Cape, “Honey! There’s a newspaper stand, pull over and I’ll buy us a copy“).
The weather (as I said) was un-seasonably mild, light fluffy clouds and it was about 11:30 on a Saturday morning. We were driving at 55mph as we passed the newspaper box. (As I drove), from the corner of my eye, I saw a black and white rabbit sitting inside the newspaper box (where the newspapers were supposed to be). I am a clark, so while interesting, I did not feel an urgent need to point out to glenn this odd sighting. However,  a mili-second after we passed, I got the feeling that there was something wrong with my passenger, glenn. ( The fun of hanging out with a scott, is that there is always a ‘give n take’ of conversation, ideas, observations…you can feel the energy radiating from these people, and (being a clark), I am always aware of their mental/emotional state of mind.)
As we passed I felt a quiet coming from the passenger side of the car. (Sort of a ‘mental gasp’). So I said, ‘hey glenn, did I see a rabbit in that newspaper box we just passed?’ “What the fuck!?” was glenn’s response.
There was a turn-around in the median about 200 yards up the road from us. I sped up and in about 2 minutes I had the car headed in the opposite direction. For some reason, neither of us looked over at the newspaper box as we drove back down the highway in order to get beyond where we saw the rabbit. Another median turn-around and we were driving north again and the newspaper box (with or without a rabbit) was about 100 yards ahead. There was quiet in the car.  I did not feel the need to drive any slower than I did the first time we drove past the box.
Again!  As we drove past the Providence Journal newspaper box, in a curious silence, we both looked to our right and once again, a black and white rabbit!  Sitting in the box where the newpapers were supposed to be!

I laughed and sped up. glenn shouted something. We reached the next median turn-around and went back the same route. The third time: rabbit was gone, newspapers were where they were supposed to be. ( Should note that the traffic was rather light, we did not drive out-of-sight of the location of the newspaper box in the course of doing our turn-arounds. There was no time for someone to stop, get the rabbit out of the box and drive off, before we got back from our turn).

It was an interesting drive home. To glenn’s credit, he did not do what most scotts (or rogers, for that matter) would have done, i.e. “nah, must of been a reflection” or “no, ain’t no rabbits in a newspaper box, thats crazy“. We both did what clarks instinctively know to do in a situation like this, be quiet and let the memory settle into the mind and …laugh.

The story above is true. The names are not changed to protect the innocent (hey, we’re talking about a scott and a clark, there ain’t no innocents there!)

The point of today’s little story, if there is to be one, is that we all share the capacity to experience the world as each other would.
To put it in terms that a roger and a scott can understand: no matter which of the three personality types we are, we never lose the capacity to see and experience the world as the remaining two types. All of us are merely predominately a clark or a scott or a roger.  That’s why, when you first read about the Wakefield Doctrine, most people say, “hey this is a great system!  But I must be a fluke, ’cause even though I know I must be a roger there are time when I am a scott!”  This is as it must be, you are also a clark or a scott.  But your world is one of a roger (in this example).
The reason it is important to understand this is, that while you may be able to identify the other two personality types within yourself, the world you are living in is that of (your) predominant type.

That is the point of the Tale of the Rabbit in the Newspaper Box.
The experience was for glenn. Even though glenn has a very high degree of flexible intelligence (the ability to imagine other realities), he is still a scott and in the world of a scott, rabbits do not sit in newspaper boxes. It shows that when you are at wit’s end, and you know that you have tried everything you can imagine,  all you have to do is stop trying.
glenn stopped trying to make sense of the situation (as a scott must) and simply enjoyed the very strange occurrence (as a clark does).

 

* which, given the early efforts to capture the attention of Readers, was not always a safe bet, here at the Wakefield Doctrine

** still not earthshaking, as I have a disturbing tendency to forget what I wrote last week… on the plus side, I get the fun of reading as ‘a Reader’  (the advantage is that I avoid the Ed Sullivan effect when I find a Post where ambition grossly exceeded ability, plus when I hit a ‘good one’… I sneak in a moment of feeling good about myself…(don’t tell anyone!)*****

*** “synchronicity? how ’bout you start paying attention to what’s going on around and enough with the metaphysics already!”  

**** my secret is safe here, no body reads footnotes!

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scotts the Wakefield Doctrine (“…then obviously we have to do ‘scotts’ in 12.5 minutes, I mean it’s only logical!”)

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

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Given that most of the current week is, at least in our North American culture, focused on a celebration that is the essence of the rogerian worldview, I thought I’d get a quickie in about scotts*.

The very young human who is left to grow up in the worldview of the Predator, develops certain skills and abilities and traits, all appropriate to thriving and surviving in a reality where it’s (metaphorically, at least):  ‘kill or be killed’ / ‘eat or be eaten’ / ‘fight or flight’ …pretty much all the time.**

We all have a scottian friend. (unless we’re scotts….then we have a clarklike friend (no! not her! she’s just a roger….the other one, the one who, while you might not speak on any regular basis, when you do get together, (be it a month or 13 years later), she picks up where you left off, without the slightest hesitation…that’s your clarklike friend)

scotts!!  they’re the ones who get us in trouble with the Principle in grade school (and)  in trouble with the cops in high school (and) …more frequently than we’d care to admit, in trouble with our spouses in adulthood. We all have a scottian friend. They’re the life of the party and the only person who, like a job applicant on her way to her first serious job interview…curriculum vita in hand, are on the guest list with a pre-emptive excuse from someone. (“Hey, sure it got a little rowdy last time… and he might have broken a lamp, but we all had fun, right?!“), That’s your scott.
Have you ever started the annual chore of cleaning out the gutters, and before you get the ladder set into the proper (and safe) 53 degree angle, you hear  ” Hey!  let me give you a hand!!” and before you can turn around, your neighbor is  climbing the ladder, without holding on with his hands and then stops and then decides it’s easier to just get up on the roof and walk along the edge and clean the gutters that way, rather than have to move the ladder…which is not really that bad an idea, until you see him climbing back up the ladder (you’re not sure how he got back down without seeing him)…. with a leaf blower on his back?  …yep, that’s your scottian neighbor.

scotts: energetic, loyal, mecurial, helpful, sloppy, hot-headed, impulsive, aggressive, natural leaders, inveterate trouble-makers, sexy, short-attention-span(ned), can’t-do-enough-for-others, can’t-follow-instructions-beyond-‘open-caref….’,
male scotts excel at being:

    • mob leaders (and)
    • police officers,
    • gym teachers (and)
    • one-term politicians, (and)
    • surgeons

female scotts excel at being:

  • elementary school Principles (and)
  • sales trainers,
  • being female (and)
  • real estate brokers,
  • actress (ages: 7 to 23 and then 43 to 79) (and)
  • family matriarch

that should hold us, in this ‘week of Herd’! Remember now, the goal of the Wakefield Doctrine is to come to be able to see the world as the other person is experiencing it. Learn the characteristics of the three worldviews, observe the people in your life and when you’re able to correctly infer how they are ‘relating themselves to the world around them’, you will totally know more about the other person than they know about themselves.

… was just Replying to a Comment from Kristi and I think it would be a good way to end today’s post.

“…it (the notion of a secondary and tertiary aspect) is one of the best things about the Doctrine, it would have us believe that, instead of trying to be something we are not (often the biggest encountered on the path of self-developing ourselfs), all we need do is realize the potential that we have to cope with a different world (one shared by ‘the other 2/3rds of the population’). Rather than have to find and learn something new and therefore not genuine to who we are, we need only accept ourselves both ‘as we are’ and ‘as we might have been’. “

 

 

* yes,  cue the ‘elbows and laughter’….pretty much have them ready,  this is about the scottian worldview, after all!

** note to New Readers: the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that we all live, to a certain, but not overly weird degree, in a reality that is personal to us… think about, oh I don’t know, the last time you stood in line at the supermarket and the cashier was talking to the the kid who was supposed to be bagging the groceries and everyone is getting impatient, or maybe, lets say you’re at a child/Teacher conference and even though the Teacher is not only very young, but clearly very, very new at his job, and yet,  it’s  becoming abundantly clear that he’s beginning to lecture you on child-rearing practices…. thats where worldviews are found.

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a) 10 , b) Things c) Thankful, d) all of the above -the Wakefield Doctrine- (yeah, why is it, there shouldn’t be too many ‘Ds’)

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

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You know how when you sit and get an idea for a Post, and at first it’s all, “yeah! what frickin great idea, this’ll knock their socks off!”  but then, as you start to write it, you’re all… “damn! this is a great idea but either I got no clue how to express it, or it’s a monster writing job and there’s like an hour left before I have to leave for:  a) work, b) the Tennis Club c) the soccer field d) the Fields of Wamsutta   … well, am I in or am I out?”

Lets do this thing!

Ok. Fine… a little set-up is in order. This the Wakefield Doctrine and today is Saturday, which means we write a Post to participate in the TToT bloghop-and-weekend-extravangza. Please read the other Posts showing below, then you will not only get an idea of how beneficial an exercise such as this can be, but will enjoy the many outstanding and gifted writers and bloggers who join us each weekend. You’re bound to find something among (these other Posts) that will cause you to stop and think, “you know, now that she said it, I can see how I might look at my situation more positively!  Go TToT!!

1) I’m grateful to everyone who voted and the Mandate is clear! Thank you! Thank you! I am totally grateful and hope to not let you all down.

2) I am grateful that there is not a lot of discussion of the ‘real world’ in this bloghop ( Lizzi’s efforts on behalf the less fortunate are (an exception)  simply because she is advocates for what she is willing to do, not what others should do… big difference imo   …as to the real world depicted in all our blogs… those are all Tales of lives, the remarkable gift of the blogosphere to us Readers

3) I am way thankful to zoe and Denise and Liz for the stimulation last night*

4) well, sure  I saw the Poll results  (yeah, this is being written before anyone can vote so, there is a certain calculated risk on how I proceed, pollistically-speaking)

(For record,  Phyllis and I have always had a family of ourselves and ‘an only dog’. I used to be fond of saying, “yeah, but the advantage of dogs over human children is that they are always glad to see you when you come home and never get to a point (in their lives) where they have friends that they would rather spend time with and then go off to college.”
That being said, there is always the ‘well you’d have to have children to understand‘ situations.
I just got off the phone ( you see up there…#4?? I wrote that 27. minutes. ago.) When I read a blog Post from a parent, lamenting over the lack of adult romantic time available, what with the kids being just down the hall, I can say with complete conviction, “I understand. I had such a…. ambition  for this Post, what with the clever Polls and funny things I could …stick in them,  gone as surely as a voice in the night, “Daddy I just threw up on Billy”.  … if you don’t mind, I’ll finish this post,  because now it’s time to go to work…  maybe later in the day, I can sneak back here, perhaps I’ll remember the one Poll Questions that were bubbling up in my writers sub-whatever….)

5) Work… I am grateful for my work, even if it causes the occasional ‘postus interruptus‘  like this morning…. hey the photo on the ‘front’ page? that was from yesterday as I drove around rural Connecticut…. I enjoy driving

6) Phyllis.  she is as enlightened a roger as there is out there, which, in all selfishness, is great for me because I not only get a rogerian view of the Doctrine (as I enjoy from Kristi and Michelle) but, she, Phyllis is demonstrating some aspects of the rogerian worldview that is totally furthering my understanding and appreciation of that 3rd personality type

7) …awright…. not an overly funny or exciting (recovery time goes way up as a blogger ages, ya know ) Poll:

8) too soon, right?    $&#*&^^@!!  I really was looking forward to writing  this Post!  I know I should simply accept that, ‘the moment’ has passed and there’ll be another Saturday morning when I can come back and write a Post that will. knock ya socks off! 

9)  yeah,  zoe…. Lizzi!   one doesn’t mess with the Seven!  play with them and they will mess you up!  Hey!  Sarah…. we still are totally encouraged to comment-thread-jump, i.e. totally interrupt the conversation that occasionally develops when a Comment causes the blog author to see new insights!

10) SR 3.1  (the first and my favorite of the Secret Rules….) hey! if you have any Poll questions that you would like to see here… leave them in the Comments, I’ll be happy to put them in the Post

 

 

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* barum…bump!  no, seriously we were on a Friday Night vidchat and it was all I have come to look forward to….

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of clarity and explanation the Wakefield Doctrine (“why didn’cha tell me how hard this writing shit was!”)

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

images-39

Before we begin, let’s see if I can tell a story*

This past Friday, as I was stopped at a traffic light, I watched in my rearview mirror as an expensive SUV pulled up behind me. The driver, a woman looking to be in her late 30s, was dressed, made up, (whatever the correct term for ‘looking a certain way’ ), consistent with the vehicle. She looked, in my rearview mirror, to be a woman of means. Naturally that caused me to ask myself, ‘why is it you think that and what does that tell you (about yourself)’? Nothing unusual there, what any clark would think, when forced to sit and wait in a car, surrounded by other cars and their drivers. But! I looked (in my rearview mirror) and noticed a dog in the passenger seat. It appeared to be a smaller, poodle-like dog, long curly hair, large nose. I smiled (I like dogs). Then I noted the change in my attitude towards the well-dressed woman in the driver’s seat. I now felt….more positive towards her. (Being a person who practices the Wakefield Doctrine pretty much all the time, this change set off a series of questions, mostly regarding why I felt on the defensive when I first saw the driver, but now was feeling decidedly friendly towards her.) All this took place in the space of about 3 minutes. I kept glancing back, (through the rearview mirror). at the woman and the dog, until the traffic light turned green. As I started forward, (turning left towards my office), I saw a person’s hand raised on the passenger’s side of the car behind me (it was, by the way, a Mercedes SUV) and  I saw that, sitting in the passenger seat, was a little and rather old woman with curly blond hair. I laughed. I felt grateful for the moment.

There’s the story.

The second theme (of) today’s Post is courtesy of 2 comments made about the Doctrine. One from our friend Kristi and one from an associate at work. Both gave me a new appreciation of my efforts to present and explain the Wakefield Doctrine. From Kristi:

I’m also excited and thankful for the upcoming holidays, but that really isn’t a surprise.
Family history seems to be one of those hobbies that transcends worldviews.”

From the woman at the office**

We were in the office yesterday and, at one point, I said to her, “hey, I know you don’t read the blog, but the newest concept is really very helpful, it’s called ‘the everything Rule“. I proceeded to explain that ‘the everything Rule’ (short for: ‘everyone does everything at one time or another Rule’), suggests that rather than try to see where something fits into the three worldviews, a better way is to assume that when person does a thing, i.e. ‘enjoy genealogy or eating in a restaurant or taking a shower’, what that thing is, is different for a clark or a scott or a roger. That, in fact, ‘taking a shower’ manifests differently in each of the three worldviews. She said, ‘That sounds like it waters down the Doctrine, but let me think about it a little’.”

These impromptu observations made me realize two things:

  1. that I must re-focus on the fact that the Wakefield Doctrine is talking about three different realities… sure, they’re personal realities, but it is still a reality
  2. this notion that we live in a reality that is personal, is the linchpin for the Doctrine, and while admittedly a difficult concept to accept, without it, the Wakefield Doctrine is just another clever categorization of traits and habits, quirks and smartass
  3. I need to work harder on expressing, in this blog, that what sets the Wakefield Doctrine apart from other ‘personality theories’ is that, rather than list likes and dislikes, phobias and secret desires, the Wakefield Doctrine says: your personality type is that collection of successful coping strategies and social adaptions appropriate to the reality you grew up in… if you grew up in the world of the Outsider or the life of the Predator or the reality of the Herd Member…. your personality type is totally appropriate, good and sufficient.

…so, thank you to Kristi  and to my associate at work for a reminder that this writing thing, while fun and enjoyable, is really fricken aggravating!

 

 

 

 

* my definition of ‘tell a story’ is: using the least number of words, convey not only an event, but do it in a way that allows a willing Reader to experience what I experienced.

** this person is a scott and she is fairly conversant on the Doctrine, at least to the extent that I have explained it over the years, she is not, however, a Reader of this blog

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