Personal | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 31 Personal | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 31

TToT…only! -the Wakefield Doctrine- funny how relative things are, non?

May 2, 2015 By

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

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…nice to be back! (not that I was away, but I was doing the ‘Apple and Ostriches’ April Blog Challenge for the last month, and having a Saturday Letter Post to write, which I attempted to combine with the TToT, the weekend, blog-writingistically-speaking wasn’t the same. Hence today’s sub-title, a reflection upon the perception that, now that the blogchallenge is over, the writing of my TToT seems so…. easy going. I distinctly recall many a Saturday morning feeling under pressure to get the Post out before Saturday’s demands became overwhelming. Like writer’s block, I suspect that the (experience) of being under a deadline and feeling stress and pressure, these are feelings surely come from within more than without?)

Speaking of ‘relaxed on the edge of serenity’, Una starts us off at Item Number:

1) Una and the return of the ‘5 to 10 mph Friday evening walks’! The days are longer and I’m able to get home from work before dark, at least on Fridays, for our ‘walk’.

2) Speaking of Una (and being grateful for technology) I think I’ve already told the story of how we ‘found’ Una at a breeder located in the Czech Republic and negotiated the entire process using Google Translate. This is, in part, prompted by a Post from this week past that employed examples of online translations. In any event, here’s the story: after Bella died it eventually became obvious (again) that we were meant to be pack of 3.  And even though we both have work that demands more time away from home than the average for, say a 1960s family. (ed. note: I will state, for the record, that when I was growing up, we ate dinner at 6:00 pm most weekday evenings! No! Really! It’s the truth and not, I’m fairly certain, the late 1960s talking.) In any event, the time came when Phylllis and I knew we had to find our missing pack member. Now, we’ve always had German Shepherds and they are not a small dog. Phyllis, practical roger that she is, suggested that maybe we should consider a smaller breed. (At the time in life when Ola or Bella got sick, they both required being lifted to go for doctor visits and such, that was what Phyllis had in mind.) Much to my dismay, I found myself agreeing,   so off to the internet I went and I stumbled across the breed  ‘Chodsky Pes’. Bred, at that time, only in the Czech Republic, we negotiated by email, arranged a courier and the rest is history.   (hey! I went looking for some source materials about the breed and searched: ‘chodsky pes breeders‘  and I showed up! (well ‘Una-pictures-that-I-took,  and a couple of the Hubs I wrote at the time…. that’s ….er  cool?)

3) hey! I remembered my password to the Hubpages and look what I found! (her first trip to the beach)

4) …feeling a little hypograteful for the weather. (Yeah, that sub-title again!! how little time has passed since we were freezing in the Winter-that-would-not-End, and now it’s not warm enough! That being said, what’s interesting, at least here in the Northeast, is that the weather is almost exactly 30 days late! March in April. But the days are long and it’s light out at 7:30 pm

5) Day Light Savings time!  easy one there!

6) I am grateful for my co-Challengers! Christine and Z and Kristi and Dyanne and Valerina  and Michelle…. while I’ve never been overly associated with teams, team spirit, team sports, teeming masses, steam rooms or team membership, I will extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to these people for the support and inspiration and such.

7) And, of course, Our Ms. Rogers and her 10 co-hostinae for keeping the home fires (metaphorically) burning… here in TToT-ville. My experience with the gigantic bloghop last month made me appreciate more than ever the sense of home here… the familiarity and camaraderie (stop me if I get too mushy), but having gone and visited the big city, I now know that I prefer this size of community.

8) them Virgins! gots to love yourself some Guard Virgins

9) glad to see many (or a few) new participants here… that’s what makes this such a lot of fun, and a (another metaphor) dude ranch for my scottian aspect

10) 1.3 y’all  New Readers? 1.3 is a much used citation from one of the coolest features of this here bloghop here, namely, the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) While whole Posts can and have been written on this topic… the BoSR/SBoR is what makes us a bloghop that stands out among thousands of bloghops… it’s what would make us king of the the… ‘pile-of-laundry,-in-front-of-the-washer,-in-a-roughly-pyramidal-shape…kinda-sorted-out-but,-growing-larger-with-the-passing-by-of- each-family-member’.  ya know?

 

Ten Things of Thankful

 

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O -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘…Of mirrors and rivers.’

April 17, 2015 By

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

O  O

there’s an old saying, “Man is the only creature that could turn a window into a mirror.”

When we think about instincts, most of us accept, without argument, that all humans have an instinct for self-preservation and (an instinct) to reproduce. Among the other basic human drives there are some that may be controversial (instinctive altruism) and others, so commonplace as to not be given a second thought, (the fear of loss/hope of gain which is the paradigm underpinning all marketing). There are two drives, that while not of such a fundamental origin as the urge to reproduce or the overriding need to preserve one’s life and well-being,  that do account for some of the appeal of the Wakefield Doctrine. They are:

  • a desire to know of ourselves (for many of us, this is the more accessible framing of the actual question of ‘why we are here, what is the purpose of life’)
  • a desire to grow and develop and become more….’successful’ (in whatever terms one might measure success)

Yow!*

As the asterisk above (and, therefore below1) indicate, the original scope of this Post has been lost to the night, I will however, give you the Friday-morning-need-to-get-to-work-because-the-day-job-is-so-very-necessary, version of the two concepts referred to in our Post’s subtitle:

  1. personality types quizzes and surveys… the most ubiquitous form of mind-candy, they are always there…in waiting rooms and bus stations, the front rack at that checkout counter, left on the bench of a bus kiosk… we can’t resist. ‘What type of animal/vegetable/famous literary character are you!!?’ they shout from the pages of ‘the Facebook’… ‘know your inner self‘, the title whispers from the magazines that everyone knows and no one admits to subscribing to, and…and the most deadly of them all, ‘Are you compatible/ who is your perfect lover/ are you the best for your spouse…20 Questions reveal all!’   this last is where the Wakefield Doctrine sets itself apart from any other personalty theory (at least any of them that have quizzes… lol,  no!  we do!  here  click here but you have to promise to tell us how you did afterwards). We have a saying, ‘…the Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not them.’  We say that because the second thing a person who stumbles upon a personality quiz will say is, “oh honey!  come here, you really need to take this quiz!! It’s so insightful!” We call this phenomenon, ‘the club-shaped mirror’, for reasons that I could have explained to you yesterday, had you been riding shotgun as I drove through the countryside on the way to work…. oh well, maybe there’ll be a left-over letter before this ‘Endless-and-Aggravating April Bloghop Challenge’ finally stops!
  2. ‘You can’t step in the same river twice‘  (a) famous old dead guy saying, have always loved this insight.  (Hey! want to hear something semi-funny? I was typing this bulletpoint and mistakenly typed, ‘you can’t stay in the same river….’   lol…. I love when stuff like that happens!)

To work. Sorry about the, (fill in a metaphor for building up expectations and stopping mid-point, appropriate to your own personal/cultural context), the ideas represented today are scattered throughout the Posts of the blog, someday I really need to spend a week (or two) and put some ‘orderly’ in this here blog here.

* can anyone else identify with getting an idea for a Post…no, not simply an idea, hell! we all get ideas for Posts, no, I mean get a feeling that the idea is really, really…. good/fun/valuable and the feeling itself is the driving force as you race to write it all down?  Unfortunately  since your writing time is limited, you’re forced to leave a ‘beginning’ on paper and come back to it later? And, then, when you return hours later, even though you recognize the thoughts and ideas that would surely become one the best Posts you’ve written, you’re like,  ..ok and then ?  Thats where I am at this moment. I still believe in the idea/theme of today’s Post, but the feeling, the energy, the enthusiasm is somehow missing! Of course, if you’re a clark, you know that that’s not the worst part of this phenomenon.**

** you really want to know?

1) one of the very old principle underlying man’s un-ending efforts to understand the world (… does that remind anyone, other than me, of a certain characteristic worldview? )

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M -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘Manifest’ (or maybe ‘monkeyshines’…. haven’t quite made up my mind)

April 15, 2015 By

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

M

Not that there’s anything wrong with using every letter of our world-famous alphabet to suggest a word that will, in turn, form the basis of an insight into our little personality theory. That being said, sometimes, you know…. you just need to kick back and not be so sensible.

But, first, lets deal with the word of the day, ‘Manifest’.

In the context of the Doctrine, manifest is a verb. Example: “I love watching a parade, how do parades manifest in your worldview?” (said no clark…ever!) We all know that, in the three worldviews, the world is different.

  • scotts wake up to a jungle (metaphorical perhaps, but still not a reality that you can get through the day without paying attention), where there are other predators and a whole world full of prey, and every moment is a moment of action and life, all the while, tending to needs of your pack.
  • rogers: they clearest example of the nature ‘manifest(ing)’… that parade we mentioned? in the reality of the Herd Member a parade is not just a bunch of orderly, yet noisy people walking in rows down the street! hell no! in the everyday life of the Herd Member, a parade is a celebration of the essentially divine nature of man… the potential to rise above the common everyday meandering through the prairie looking for food and hiding from predators. It, (the parade), is a combination of: heavenly choir and boudoir murmurs  for the roger it is the soul of Man on display ….with trumpets and tubas!
  • clarks you know, you’d think…hell! shit must be manifesting every which way for these guys! what with being on the outside-looking-in, surely clarks are in the best position to appreciate how reality can be different for different people. Well,  yes and no.  (lol…. and that, new Readers is the quintessential humor and ultimate tragedy inherent in the personal worldview of clarks!)

The real ‘purpose’ of this word, this ‘to Manifest’, really is to remind us that whatever thing we may be confronting or otherwise dealing with at any given moment in our lives very well be a totally different and (possibly) fiendishly complicated thing to the other person… if you really want to understand the other person, the people in your life, your children, your spouse, yourself…. remember that, the very thing, idea, rationalization, action without thought, impulse or desire that you’re convinced that the other person needs to accept/understand/agree-with-you-on/laugh at/fight against might actually exist as something totally different for them. The Wakefield Doctrine’s primary use and value lies in helping us to know the other person’s worldview and, by doing that,  you stand a very good chance of seeing the world as the other person is experiencing it.

I thought we had time for some silly fun… but, no, we do not!

tell you what!  if I think of something fun and/or silly I’ll come back later and edit this here Post here.

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F -the Wakefield Doctrine- f…f…Fear

April 7, 2015 By

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

F

Boy, for a minute there I was afraid I’d forgotten the angle that I was going to take for this Post!* Fortunately, given that we are following ‘E’ (the everything Rule), we can use the word ‘fear’ to illustrate 2 things:

  1. how fear plays a critical role in the (experience) of the worldview of the Outsider/clark
  2. as an example of how ‘the everything Rule’ is not limited to jobs and hobbies or secret passions
  3. and possibly allow us to highlight the similarities shared by the three worldviews and, by doing that, suggest an approach to self-improving ourselves.

…to clarks. My first thought, when the ‘f word’ occurred to me, was ‘fear is an emotion that permeates the life of a clarks‘. My second thought was to remember an old saying, ‘clarks live in fear and yet are the most un-afraid of the three personality types‘.  The following 2-part block quote is divided into: a) you’re a clark…  and 2) you know a clark, have a child or a parent (sometimes a very similar experience) who is a clark and you’d enjoy nothing more than to gain insight into this fear thing, the better to help them over-come the things that they seem to be fearful of, afraid of.

2) first. watch a clark experiencing fear. good luck, with that. It will not show, unless the fear-inducing source is shared by others and then (a) clark will focus on the fear of the other’s rather than their own fear. they will talk about it, joke about and generally try to come up with reasons and information that should let the others (who are feeling fear) feel less afraid. and they are sincere in this effort to help others.  Now, when a clark experiences fear that no one else appears to feel, they will get quiet and distractionary. they are fearful of appearing afraid, for (fear) of either losing what little positive regard they might allow other to hold for them or (worse) stand out among their peers as being fearful, which in turn invites scrutiny… never a sought after goal

a) the most basic source of fear for clarks is:   discovery.

3) the everything Rule!  everyone experiences fear at one time or another. How this incredibly fundamental emotion manifests in the three worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine is not only instructive of the worldview, but useful in self-improving oneself

  • clarks: fear is a threat. fear is not the problem, the thing that we suspect is behind the (source) of the fear is.  and, more than the other two, fear is totally personal.  When a loved one/friend of a clark expresses fear, the clark will do anything to help….fearlessly. most fear (for clarks) is the threat of scrutiny and (implied) the exposure as being the Outsider, to the people in their lives (that they delude themselves into believing don’t already know)
  • scotts: fear, while not fun… per se, is accepted by scotts as part of the deal (of life). When fear comes about as an aspect of a deliberate act (performing, or taking deliberate risks for a gain), scotts experience fear as relish… a part of life.  When fear is not a result of a deliberate act, then scotts will exhibit the classic ‘fight or flight’ response. (I remember when Ola was alive and we had to go to the vet, like many dogs, she was not a big fan of these necessary visits. The thing was, when we arrived and got out of the car, Ola would try to get me to walk off into the woods (that surrounded Dr Bowen’s office), naturally I would not let her. As soon as Ola recognized that there was no getting around it, she would start pulling me towards the door into the office. That is a scottian response to fear.
  • rogers: fear is the reward and the punishment for right living. (that’s all I’m going to say. I have too much respect for the incredibly alien world that is the rogerian worldview (at least from the perspective of a clark).
    Here’s an example, courtesy of the progenitor roger (though, by definition, he will deny making this statement):

    A very, very long time ago, we were all hanging out together and I noticed that roger seemed bothered by something,  so I asked what was wrong. He did not answer directly, nevertheless, I learned that he had a major dental appointment coming up. OK, I could relate to that** so I engaged him in conversation and the way roger expressed the manifestation of his fear (of this dentist visit) was that he was concerned that, ‘he knew how to die right’.  Not that the procedure was particularly life-threatening, but, it would involve the use of anesthesia, so naturally one thought of (the possibility) of dying.  But it was the words that he used, ‘(that it was) important to know that he knew how to die right‘  that gives us a very telling insight into the rogerian worldview.

That’s all the time we have today!

* yeah, ha ha

** a really awful clark story… I’ll tell you sometime

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D -the Wakefield Doctrine- Doctrine (….I sure am grateful that I named it that!)

April 4, 2015 By

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

images

Ever wonder where the name, ‘the Wakefield Doctrine’ comes from? Well, I’m grateful for your interest1! It’s a fairly interesting story, in that it came about as a by-product of my decision to start this blog. Up until that moment, (in 2009), I was happy calling this insight into human behavior, ‘the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers’. How did that name come about? My! we’re just full of set-up questions this morning, aren’t we? Well, we can do this set up in one of two ways:

  1. ‘I can utter the very time-honored and respected phrase, “well, gather ’round and I’ll tell how ‘the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers’ came to be”  (or)
  2. we could cue some wavy lines and (an) increasing reverb (with a touch of echo) and find ourselfs in Pawtucket RI in 1981 (or thereabouts)

(man! I really hope that came out funnier to you than it did to me, …after 20 minutes of searching youtude. plus the fact that, from my early impressions of the demographic of the ‘Can’t-You’See’ April Blog Challenge, most visiting readers were about 4 years old when the Wayne’s World franchise was at it’s peak… oh well, too late now)

The ‘eureka moment’ of ‘the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers’:

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. Not limited to repairing 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 scott while he worked. While there, a young man walked into the store, came directly to the ‘repair department’ where scott and I were talking and placed on the counter what was known as a  ‘duel cassette recorder’  (A device with the capacity to record two cassette cartridges at once. Often used to copy the contents of one cassette to another, what we would call today, making a back up. The controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ were two sets of the normal tape recorder controls: Volume, Treble and Bass. It was different from a single cassette recorder in that it had a Master Volume control dial, which, as the name implies controlled the overall sound output of the device.) The tape recorder that the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and had no signs of damage or abuse. I stepped back and Scott looked up and said, ‘What can we do for you’?   The customer said to  Scott, “this thing is brand new, it worked for a couple of days, then it stopped working entirely, I can’t figure out what is wrong”.

Scott looked at the device briefly, then without saying a word, reached under the counter, brought out a roll of electrical tape, and tearing off a 2 inch piece of tape, taped over the Master Volume control (after returning the dial to it’s highest setting). Scott then slid the device back over the counter and said, “ There, its all right now”

The customer asked to plug in the recorder, took a cassette from his pocket, tried the recorder, and ran it through it’s paces. After proving to himself that the broken tape recorder that he brought into the store now worked like new, he  thanked Scott and walked out of the store,  a totally satisfied customer.

Boy, am I grateful for that particular trip to the lovely city of Pawtucket2!

So that’s the source of the insight that the Wakefield Doctrine is built upon. Funny about that, I’ve told this story to a lot of people and a certain percentage of people will say, ‘and you’ve spent, what, 30 years working on a personality theory on the basis of a chance observation in a second-rate music store?’ and I say, ‘yes, yes I have’.

….the name, Wakefield Doctrine?  ah! now we get contemporary…. in 2009 I was on my weekly Saturday night drive…. no, lets watch instead!

(this being Saturday, there is the TToT to get up here,  as well as the above D letter. Seeing how we already have two items (clever how I snuck them into the post in, like, footnotes (?feetnotes?)… no?

3) I am grateful for my dog, Una

4) I am grateful for the desk, without which I would be typing with only one hand, which would make this process much more time intensive (and balance-intensive)

5) I am grateful for my work which involves a lot of driving

6) …in my audi

7) lol…. ok, can’t keep it up  so I’ll attempt to complete my list without trying for the D thing…. (hey, funny thing, over the previous 5 days leading up to the blog challenge, I was creating draft posts with titles as a word for the corresponding letter (of the alphabet) occurred to me… well, imagine my surprise this morning when I opened up the Doctrine dashboard and saw ‘D’yanne  …. I’m sure I must have had something in mind as to how I would relate the Doctrine to Dyanne… not quite sure now, but for some reason, I get a visual of Toto being put in a wicker basket and being taken by Margaret Hamilton! go figure

8) thanks to Lizzi and Jen for their support and encouragement in this first week of the April Herd Blog Challenge!

9) (if they really wanted to encourage me, they would find out the name of that new GV…. damn!)

10) 1.3  binyons…. 1.3!

Ten Things of Thankful

 

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1) … I know, you’re welcome!*

2) to the north of Providence (the capital city of Rhode Island), Pawtucket is famous for it’s minor league baseball team, the Pawtucket Red Sox, and, of course it’s Rhymistically-eponymous value in writers of limericks, the world over

* yeah, you ever have an idea and not write it out immediately and when you come back to it, you do not have a clue…or worse, you remember what you thought you would do and it seems kinda stupid…. well, like that  lol

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