predicting human behavior | the Wakefield Doctrine

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “and then there were three”

March 10, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Why is a coffee mug like a writing desk?

no, I’m serious… Readers of the Wakefield Doctrine can easily imagine how good/pleased/(I’d say delighted but fear that would sound… I don’t know, a little X-Chromish) I felt when, upon Phyllis’ arrival home the other night and said, “Did you know there were packages on the porch. I think one is the clothes I ordered…”*

Well. I came up the stairs, a rectangle box that was littered with slogans and icons of LL Bean in one hand, and in the other, a cube of styrofoam. Not exactly a cube, more of a decahedron of styrofoam. I looked for a return address and finding none, walked out (through the French doors in the dining area) to the deck and scanned the trees surrounding the house.

There was a cup inside the ~~cube~~ decahedron. And the cup is, well you can see it above. It is a lot like the first mug and undeniably quite different. Let me show you:

…that’s how a mug is like a story.

Thank you, mug-fairy(s)**

(Best be careful in them trees, hear tell there’s some snow in the future for them of us in New England)

* note: I always come into the house through the garage, which is sorta under the main living area and so will hardly ever notice parcels or packages on the front porch. I put a photo in the ‘cover photo’ for this post. You can kinda see the design in the photo

** no, I totally agree, not a major risk of that term gaining traction in the world of fun surprise anonymous gifts of coffee mugs that contain a secret story.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, predicting human behavior, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday Post on Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 27, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Given that this post is being written on Monday, it is, prima facie, a post intended for clarks.

(How do you know if you are clark, and therefore qualified to read this here post here? Good question*)

The Wakefield Doctrine provides for three ‘personality types’: clarks, scotts and rogers. Further, the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we are, all of us, born with the potential to become any of the three. Further, it is understood that though we become one type (predominant personality) we never lose the capacity of seeing the world as the ‘other two’ might. The development of our predominant personality type is the result of adapting to the world we find ourselves in, as but a child. The quality and characteristics of the personality types are a reflection of our personal realities, as opposed to inherent drives and impulses, urges and predilections. The Doctrine does not seek to identify your type by your description of what you like and dislike, hope for and fear. All we do is ask you to consider three descriptions of the world. The one that makes ‘most sense/looks good/feels right’ is the key to identifying your predominant personality type as:

clark: the Outsider living in a place apart from, a life of observation, a person who seeks to blend in for fear of being discovered yet does not tolerate being ignored; for a clark, the world (and it’s peoples) is a place, it’s ‘out there’, it’s always waiting for them each and every morning and chases them into the night’s darkness
scotts: the Predator the only one of the three who would demonstrate the rather banal (popular with rogers) expression that ‘Life is Good’. scotts demonstrate this sentiment, they do not embrace it, by virtue of the fact that, for (a scott) life is meant to be lived, in and of the here and now. reflection and conscience are drags on their efforts; scotts run towards the day regardless of what awaits them and they will chase the day (and the world and it’s peoples) into the night, sleeping only when their efforts exhaust their capacity
rogers: the Herd Member they lead perfect lives, orderly lives, lives quantifiable. to be a roger is not only to know what it is to be alive, it is to know why and what must be done to live properly; there are no accidents in the lives of rogers, there are only surprises and wrongs to be accounted for; the day is a set number of hours in which the goodness (and, don’t forget, perfection) of their time on earth is to be demonstrated; without the rogerian influence we would all be roaming the savannah, eating to live and hiding to survive.

So there you have it!

oh…yeah, one more thing!

How to apply the insights and secrets, help and cautions of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)? It’s all about ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’ today. Totally important note: The wording is critical and not what you might think you read. Once more, ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’. As we leave the computer or phone that are whispering these thoughts, do not be as concerned with ‘how you relate to the world today’….be it at school with teachers and friends, girlfriends-to-be, bullies-to-avoid or at work where your life can be twisted into a shape that is better than or into a shape that you are forced to drag through your life, returning home in the evening both embarrassed and fearful, or if you’re maintaining the life of your family (biological or social) and doing this and doing that, don’t waste you time on how you relate, spend your time in consideration of ‘how you relate yourself, to the world’.

I didn’t say it, but someone did, ‘to thine ownself be true’

….yo

lol

* which, of course, is suggestive of being a clark! for most clarks, we’ve never met a question a question we didn’t find interesting!**

** if you understand the reason for the italics, and the inference… you can stop reading, you are so a clark

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

“…too early to work” -the Wakefield Doctrine- “surely not too early to reprint an old Post!”

January 31, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Up way too early. Work and writing, neither wanted to go to bed last night. And, yeah, that wouldn’t be the worst thing, the worst thing was that both (work and writing) was just in my head. All of the bad and none of the good, oh well, what’cha gonna do?

Re-print an old Post?

Well, I don’t mind if I do! Not the same level of satisfaction as writing new content, but better than looking at ‘the Facebook’, which is getting kinda old (‘except for the Gravity Challenge! that’s a whole ‘nother thing. If you want to watch your weight and would like to do so in the company of some interesting people, come on over to the Gravity Challenge! We’d be glad to have you join us. Easy as can be. Every day we take a photo of the readout of our scale(s) and send it in, whereupon I post it to the aforementioned Facebook. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Oh, btw, we have what’s called Kristi’s Rule. It says, any portion of that readout you care to send in, works fine. The Challenge is about the change, not the number. So click here.)

reprint from a few years ago:

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of personality that you get to enjoy with your friends and them, before it gets all famous and mainstreamy and everyone will know about it)

Question: If your husband is a roger and you are a clark, is it true that they never accept how much you have changed over the years, since you first met?
Answer: Too true¹

(Welcome to ‘ya shoulda just asked Tuesday’! We will be presenting some common questions and the semi-comprehensive answers…along with a little commentary, mostly to let us get away with dividing the page into block quotes.’)

Question: My best friend is funny and fun to be with, but sometimes when we are around other people he gets like, mean even goes and picks on me. But this happens only with certain people, this big kid that (my friend) knows. What gives?

Answer: Chances are your friend is a scott and the person that, when they’re around, your friend starts acting mean?…well, that other person is a scott too, but they are what we call dominant (to your friend). So your friend, even though he is picking on you, doesn’t mean to hurt your friendship… it’s a pack² thing, you know?
Answer: jeez, if you say so,

(This question deals with the changing pack order (from the scottian perspective) and it’s effects on the behavior of a scott. Note: this question (and by implication, the experience cited), will most likely be posed by a clark. Do you know why that should be?)

Question: My fiancée and I are getting close to the Big Day. When we first got engaged, we both agreed to keep the ceremony and everything on the quiet, low-key side, but lately, ( the wedding is in 3 months), she has been talking more to her sisters and some of her old friends and it seems like the guest list is getting bigger and bigger. What gives?

Answer: She is probably a roger. Forget about changing her mind. It means a lot to her, in a way that you will never understand. So relax! Sneak a couple of your friends that she might not have approved when the guest list was small, she probably won’t even notice now, and if she does make an issue of it, say the following to her (word for word): “I understand how important family is to you now. And even though I am not close to my family, you have shown me that my feelings³ of friendship with (fill in the names of you friends) make them like family. Won’t you let my family join your family …darling?”

(And there are those who would say, ‘Hey Wakefield Doctrinaires! Sure you have a uniquely clever take on personality types, but what about practical applications? Huh, what about those?’ Well, here ya go! Who cannot not identify with this situation? …not counting the rogers, of course!)

Question: My boss is nice enough, but it seems like he tries too hard to be, like my friend or something! Every day it is ‘how are you doing?’, “is there anything I can do to make your job easier?” I mean, all the time! I can’t get any work done when he is in the office, he is always offering to ‘help’! I might be able to deal with this, except that every time I do get some work done that he needs to sign off on, he always finds fault! And if I come up with something on my own initiative (he likes to say that he wants me to try to ‘think outside the box’) he is either totally negative or acts like he is amazed that I actually did it myself! Should I quite my job?
Answer: Probably.⁴

(This Question deals with a scenario that is all too common. And, although we do not propose that all bosses are rogers, we will say this, ‘If your boss is a scott you have: a) a good time everyday up until the day he decides that it is time to change careers or b) a lead pipe cinch of a sexual harassment lawsuit, so the day you get tired of her shenanigans, ‘it’s sayonara, see ya in court’
If your boss is a clark, then we know the following: a) if your clarklike boss is female then her boss is a roger, if your clarklike boss is male then his boss is a scott! and b) they (clarks) make great bosses, will stick up for you totally against all opponents, but jeez! enough with the leadership by consensus! Get a set, yo.

That music referenced in the Title of today’s Post? Totally weird. I’m sitting and watching TV and a commercial comes on and before I can hit ‘MUTE’ I hear the music in the background (of the commercial) and I’m off to the great and omnicient google… and here we are

1) rogers are about consistency, if they are about anything at all! The worldview of the herd (rogers) maintains that history, tradition, continuity…consistency is of the greatest good! The worldview is also one in which the individual’s relationship with the world-at-large manifests primarily in emotional terms. So when a (lasting) relationship forms, the details of ‘the other’ person are important, in a sense, manifesting the emotional investment. So, as time goes by, even though people change and grow and develop, the roger will still insist on seeing the ‘original person’

2) scotts, in the initial behavioral metaphor: like pack animals, i.e. wolves, dogs, lions and such. The social ranking in the pack is one of simple dominance, an alpha at ‘the top’ and everyone else in order of strength/prowess/capability downward from there. It is a primary characteristic of the scottian personality type to establish ranking when entering a new (social ) environment. Literally going from person to person, figuratively pushing them on the shoulder in order to establish ranking

3) emotions! always play the emotion-card when dealing with rogers!

4) you could try to…nah, don’t even bother. Maybe if you got to the Doctrine sooner, you might have learned enough to invoke your own rogerian aspect to re-configure your work relationship… but too hard, too frustrating, easier to get another job. But then again, most bosses/middle managers/supervisors/Principals are rogers! so maybe you should be asking about the Wakefield Doctrine School of Self-Improving Oneself…school

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, predicting human behavior, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- (it’s all kinds of fun and useful!)

January 21, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Don’t you love it when one thing becomes more than one? (Of course, as all clarks instinctively recognize, if not lack the standing to take advantage of it* all things are one and one can be all things.)

Whoa! Yeah, take a second, remind yourself, ‘oh, that’s right! this is the Wakefield Doctrine I’m reading! they ain’t heavy, they’re just having fun!’

Anyway … I’m referring to my subtitle ‘it’s all kinds of fun and useful’ and while I wrote it to reference the Wakefield Doctrine, it immediately connected to this bloghop, the Ten Things of Thankful. Two inferences for the price of one!

So on with the TToT.

1) Lizzi Lewis (who continues to deny her famous great-uncle (on her mother’s side)), for creating this here bloghop here. The cool thing about the TToT is that you can’t do it wrong! (yeah, I’m feeling all Oxford don-ish, so I’m gonna go ahead and leave that one hanging out there… one hint: BoSR/SBoR)

2) Phyllis and Una: one for demonstrating how simply useful and beneficial the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine can be in terms of living one’s life, the other for demonstrating how good simple life can be.

3) ‘Almira‘ what an interesting trip it’s been, these last 42 or so weeks. Experiencing an odd reluctance to write the remaining chapters. I suspect that it’s the same as the reluctance of our readers to read the last chapters.

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

5) the photo at the top is from a church where I was sitting (in the back, of course) attending a funeral for the spouse of someone I know. Talk about your essential paradox of life! I felt sympathy for the living person in the front pew and yet was grateful to be included among those who were expected to be there. In a clarklike way, there are few of events more life-affirming than a funeral. It serves, (for me), as a reminder of the whole ‘grain of sand’ thing in Blake’s poem. Next to walking out through the doors of a hospital after visiting a sick friend, there are few times when the world feels as large and full of potential, as when I walk out and away from a funeral service, as I did the other day.

6) the gang at Six Sentence Stories. Talk of creating a world and a community! zoe has done what people who are gifted with people and have the ability to let strangers feel like they belong do. Every Thursday, theys a bunch a people what write stories in six (and precisely six) sentences… (yeah, I’m a clark, so, of course, I went for the patois)

7) the crew at the Gravity Challenge val and joy, lisa and sarah and kristi (hey! you need to join us! well, no, not need to…. need to as in, its fun and useful! And we have Kristi’s Rule which says: ‘take a photo first thing every morning (except Sunday). it can be of as much or as little of the scale readout as you want. what we’re sharing each morning is the change, the experience of Stable Weight or the hunt for a new stable weight’)

8) (gonna repeat last weeks thing of leaving an item blank for now, seeing as it’s only 8:13 in the morning, surely after a day in the field, I’ll have something interesting or, failing that, a cool photo)

9) (did you miss the part about ‘leaving an item blank for now?’)

9.3) Hey! here’s an idea Why don’t we try to post other TToT posts here… in this one. It might work, at least until Lizzi gets back from the Dark Continent (do they still call it, ‘the Dark Continent?’ they don’t? what the hell! It’s a pretty cool name. (Interviewer: “Where were you born, Mr scottroger?” Me: “Well, as a matter of fact, I was born in a speeding cab careening through a small village in the heart of the Dark Continent.” Interviewer: “Cool!”)

I am totally proud of css-self! see the photos? click on ’em

anyway, here goes. In order of the Facebook, Wendy’s TToT:

now, Pat Brockett’s:

Kristi:

terrormom

10) SR 1.3 (New Readers? SR 1.3 stands for ‘Secret Rule 1.3’ and it’s to be found in the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) zoe just happens to be the Reference Librarian (yeah, complete with reading glasses worn around the neck, a chain of strung crystal beads, and …and! she has one of those clasping holders for chalk? you know, you push the button on one end and these teeth-things open and you put the chalk in and release the button. white chalk unless (on special occasions only, blue!) and a timer that sits on the front of her desk. which, in turn, is one of those closed-front, short squared legs oak desks with the handles on the front of drawers made of the same wood and a locking shallow middle drawer.

* there are notable exceptions, of course. Among them, one Cynthia (‘my friends call me Sageleaf‘) Calhoun who has been my personal…. hey! there must be a word for designating a person who exemplifies ‘principle in practice’…. damn, whatever, if I can’t find it, then I’ll just have to make a word up!

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, the Wakefield Doctrine

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘what an excellent day it is out there!’

January 11, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

The weather today, and I say this in complete sincerity, is one of my favorite weather days. Sure, some of you like the fresh, invigorating feel of brisk October afternoon, vibrant colors and the hint of winter, other Readers prefer the warmer, but winter-tinged day in late March, when the warmth within the earth begins to reach the surface, light green life pushing into the sun. I really like today’s weather.

The dead of winter, snow covering the ground and 50 degrees. Talk about your sweet and sour chicken lo mein, tell me how much you love the rough then soft, the dead silent in the middle of a scream… that’s today. And it’s more than meteorology, the wind is howling. And…and! it’s pre-dawn, which is a damn-totally-engaging-intro-to-any-novel mood piece in and of itself!

I love this kind of morning. The truth be told, I’m typing this at about 4 am and can’t wait ’til it gets light enough to see out the window. I wrote a post once, way back in the early Doctrine days, that was totally inspired by a morning like this, so, if I may, I’ll reprint it.

(Technical fashion advice: to properly enjoy and appreciate a morning like this, it helps to have a coat with a hood. It’s warm, but not that warm. And walking through a howling cloud-racing morning with a hood up is like flying your living room through the woods. …whoa, caffeine is kicking in! No, serially, as I type I can hear the freight train sound of an approaching gust of wind through the pine forest that surrounds the house. very cool)

on with the reprint. (love the music in the vid…perfect mood music)

(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)

(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)

Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)

Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)…

…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.

Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?

I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.

… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…

(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)

So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!

(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)

(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)

Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.

If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures (clarks, scotts and rogers) will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

So, if this Post doesn’t get the Progenitor roger to write another comfortable and enjoyable reading Post, I don’t know what will.

For now….goodnight Slovinaaannssss!!!!!!!!!

(And a virtual shoutout to jen and kino and our other new friends from sl y’all come back now, hear?)