predicting human behavior | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘…the beat goes on and on, and on and on’

September 26, 2015 By clarkscottroger

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

Today is Saturday and Saturday is the beginning of the weekend, which means that it’s time of the TToT Post. This, (the Post, not the weekend or Saturday or even Today), is an exercise in gratitude, which is not all girlie and school-like as it may sound! Sure, there are mostly girl-centric writers found in the pages of the weekend bloghop, but! we got Rich Rumple and, once there was this guy, Jak, who wrote a mean Grat List, but then went off on The Quest for the Missing Consonant. What I think I’m trying to say here is that this bloghop not only has something for everyone, but it’s a good thing to do (for yourself). Further, if you’re new to this thing and worried about the pressure of producing a full 10 Items each and every week, then I have two words: ‘the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)’* The BoSR/SBoR is there to assure us that to write whatever we have within, provided the intent (of our efforts), is in keeping with the intent of this exercise. But, enough about you!! Lets hear about me and my week and things.

1) computer Solitaire. This, second only to spending 3 years sweeping the Monastery floors with one of the straw broom things and getting whacked upside the head by the Dali Lambchop (or Master Po or… Mother Superior) every week, is the most helpful tool for centering oneself and appreciating how easy it is to self-sabotage ourselves as we go through our daily effort at life. (what happens, if you play enough solitaire, is that, you will, if you are very lucky, catch yourself ‘cheating to lose’.)

2) gotta go with a standard (for these Pages): technology! To be able to see something oddly….almost startling beautiful is one thing, to be able to capture it in a photo, as I did this week (and is my ‘lead photo’) is very very gratitudisicous

3) hey! almost missed one! To (still) be able to notice the odd and the unusual and the semi-beautiful and other cool shit out there each and every day

4) the work I do allows me freedom from routine, (in exchange for intermittently, very high levels of stress), and I get to wander about, on guard for adventure or simply the occasional rabbit hole

5) (Hypo-gratitude Item): the weather. While it’s not exactly bad weather, it’s so not Summer anymore. I mourn the absence of sweat and feel of a sun-baked steering wheel in my hands and 113 degree leather seats under my…. seat. Only 9 more months ’til Summer!

6) every list has a dog in it! (Una, of course! Every Friday, we go for a 7 mile-an-hour walk and she gets to sample the world beyond her own yard)

7) shout out to the bloghops that no week would be complete without: the Gravity Challenge and the Six Sentence Story and, this week, a blast from the past: Finish the Sentence Friday!! Kristi and them are still at it and it’s a very good ‘hop. It was, in fact, the first bloghop I participated in… sort of the wait-until-no-one-was-looking-and-jump-in-the-deeper-end-of-the-pool experience (I’ll reserve the visuals for Rich and Jak and all)

8) Phyllis for not only reading my blog (not constantly, like, say me…. but occasionally, which, as we all know, is saying something. Spouses and such are normally not that…focused on the imaginary world that so many of us spend so much of our time living in.)

9) sort of hypo-gratitude but, not really… just one of those experiences that, while not enjoyable tends to, somehow be beneficial: I have this property that had a tenant who had to leave the property, (so the seller could sell it), and he had a white German Shepherd that apparently he couldn’t take with him, so he gave the dog to the abutting neighbor. That’s not such a terrible thing, (at least not for me). What is terrible, (as a result of my limited capacity for emotional response), is that when I go to inspect the property, (roughly once a week), (if he’s out) the dog will run… run up to my car and then sniff me and walk back to his (new) home. I do, in fact, apologize outloud each time, ‘sorry man, wrong human‘ and I hope that helps, but as far as I can tell, he hasn’t found the person he is waiting for. kinda sad. but it helps me improve myself, (if I’m up to it), each time he demonstrates this loyalty and hope that is not, as far as I can observe, diminished by repeated disappointment.

10) SR 1.3

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An InLinkz Link-up

*yeah, never miss a chance at this joke…somehow it still cracks me up, every single time I use it!! go figure

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

09/24/15 -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘you’re right! the date does add up to a number with 6 in it! It must be Thursday!’

September 24, 2015 By clarkscottroger

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

Once again, I’m apparently taking purposeful refuge in mis-understanding the week’s prompt. Clearly the word is ‘axes’. In my defense, my intention was to establish the plural of that word, but alas, mis-logism reigned, (once more), and a story grew, around the word ‘axis’. Please don’t tell anyone, especially zoe/ivy! She puts a lot of effort into this Thursday bloghop, the Six Sentence Stories and, seemingly every week, I show up and mess up the word prompt, all semi-rogerian confidence, never letting the facts get in the way of my imagination.

The Clockwork, the Mortal Axis and the World

“And these little dots,” the black magic marker moved around the big red circle in the center of a spiral-bound note book, the newly placed dots showing a practiced randomness, “show what can happen, even when we successfully remove all of the primary tumor,” the physician’s voice was directed at the man and woman sitting on the far side of the desk, yet his eyes never rose from the drawing, clearly more comfortable with the certainty of his illustration than the reaction of the people who were watching the pad with dutiful eyes.

Ironically, the good health of the couple, combined with the suddenness of the diagnosis, resulted in finding themselves in the office of a highly rated surgeon, (“Blue Cross Blue Shield is listening and knows that you want to take responsibility for your healthcare!“), who was, nevertheless, a total stranger. Despite (or because) of this, both halves of the couple were at their personal strongest and personal weakest, as is sometimes the way with long married couples, the strength each had was intended for the other, the weakness, a deception that both wished for the other, yet accepted for themselves.

The Doctor continued his lecture in that patiently-focused manner shared by successful dog trainers and beloved kindergarten teachers, he chose to believe (without actually being aware of his decision), that the distant look on the face of the patient indicated non-comprehension or, worse, in his opinion, the refusal to come to grips with a problem that he was demonstrating his competency to solve.

The man, sensing the approach of a turning point, probably the last level spot on an un-seen roller coaster, decided that he had to do something and took advantage of a momentary pause (between metastasize and mortality) to say, “I believe you know Bill Hendron, a client of mine, he said to give you his regards, apparently the two of you did your internship at the same hospital, what a small world, isn’t it?”

“Oh! I haven’t heard that name in years, Bill’s an exceptional physician, up at Children’s Hospital in Boston, isn’t he?” as the Doctor spoke, there began a change, as if the world, (or at least this small and private section of it, a doctors office and a doctor presenting his prognosis), were a revolving stage, almost imperceptibly, the physician was beginning to see two people in his office, instead of two patients, …the clockwork of the world, the wheels and gears of that mortal axis, moving the stage, (as Shakespeare would like it), backdrops and props exchanged, the actors remain yet relate differently to one and another, the way that they relate themselves to the world around them, making all the difference to quality of the un-folding drama.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘…when characters in a favorite book step out of the pages’

September 19, 2015 By clarkscottroger

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

Phyllis and Una

Easy one, no? I mean, serially, there was: a roadtrip with our dog, going to a place on the shore of a salted sea, wide bridges that arched over salt ponds and harbors, mingling with strangers who brought their dogs to breakfast, slowly and quietly finding passage through urban blight only a car-width away, through a clean windshield gazing at cages, tall and cold and finding electrons turned flesh and blood, exchanging keystrokes for hugs that conveyed warmth and life.

That was my week ….your’s?

photos of yesterday and the week before….

(oh yeah, 6) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules, 10) SR 1.3)

so a little pictorial remeberationing,

‘yesterday’s walk with Una and, unfortunately average speed for 5 hours through NYC last Friday’

*****

the scene from my office window yesterday, a bunch of antiques cars pulled in across the street and, when I spotted the guy in the white shirt and hat, I had to say, ‘damn! talk about devoted hobbits’* * lol… ask zoe or maybe joy, they’ll explain the joke

*****

down the street from our Bed&Breakfast in Ocean City…. ‘I immediately thought, hey! we should say hi for kristi’* (like when someone says they’re from, say, Chicago, someone is always available to say, ‘hey do you know so-and-so?’)

*****

a remarkably depressing cultural/architectural artifact… one of the mega housing complexes as we approached NYC… made me think of the line from a Jimi Hendrix song, (‘Up from the Skies’): “I heard some of you got your families, living in cages tall & cold…:

*****

…finally, as always, there’s:

ok… link up, binyons!

Your hosts

A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, The Meaning of Me, Thankful Me, Uncharted, The Wakefield Doctrine

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

Six Sentence Stories -the Wakefield Doctrine- can you imagine that!?!

September 17, 2015 By clarkscottroger

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

zoe/ivy is here today, because it’s Thursday and, as we all know, Thursday is the day for the Six Sentence Story bloghop. Tape my word for it, it is. Each week we’re given a ‘word prompt’ and challenged to write a story in six sentences. Pretty simple, isn’t it? No, not it’s not. But it’s satisfying and aggravating and frustrating and, ultimately …quite gratifying.

The two farm roads that converged to create the ‘four corners’, (earning that spot along the ridge running through the open farmland of rural CT, the title of ‘Town’), were covered in snow by Halloween, promising a winter that might earn the honor of being a reference-winter, forever available when, in the heat of Summer, people seek relief from one weather extreme by discussing another.

“Oh, aye-yah!…it’s a cold one, not as cold as ’67, a course, now that was a cold winter‘, the old men, gnome-like commentators on life, weather and the state of hope for the citizens of the Voluntown, gathered to the warmth of the wood stove, in the back center of McCormack’s, the Town’s grocery/hardware/clothing/farm supply and drugstore.
‘The Apothecary‘, Miss Eldridge would call it, ever alert to bestow the benefits of her calling, (one might call her the School Marm, if not overly concerned with the maternal inference in the title), upon whoever was in earshot, the use of the old-fashioned word gave her pleasure, as if, rather than inviting mockery of her age and social status, it enhanced it, much like a visit to a Victoria’s Secret store might create a self-perceived desirability, her perfect enunciation transforming the rustic store/supply house (now an Apothecary), magically transformed into a sophisticated and refined urbane nightspot, seething with men and women stalking their evening dreams.

I grew up in the 1960s and I survived the ’70s. Even with that level of existential survival-training, I’m seriously at risk of losing my grasp on the here and now, mostly because the ‘here’ seems to be an old-fashioned country store, and the ‘now’, well, it sure isn’t where I left off last night. The sudden feeling of discontinuity triggers my survival response, I make no sudden moves, do not make eye contact with anyone, (the ‘anyone’ seem to be two old men sitting by a black pot-bellied stove, a woman dressed all in grey who has a look on her face that seems to be privately excited), I can feel a door being opened behind me, more by the increased illumination on the back of the store than by actual sound, from behind me, like I needed an additional surprise, came a man’s voice, overly-dressed in friendly concern,

‘I assure you, Miss Eldridge, he is just not your tape“.

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

clarks -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘hey, I’m good enough for my friends…so the heck with what you think’

September 16, 2015 By clarkscottroger

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

(As so often happens, here at the Doctrine, a phrase popped into my head that seemed to be a whole Post…provided I could put into words the feeling that were [embedded] in said phrase. When I wrote today’s Post subtitle, I immediately had two thoughts, a) Readers are going to misunderstand and respond by saying, ‘aww, don’t feel bad, we all think you’re doing great’ and 2) I really need to get back to this kind of post, one that is written to the clarks who are encountering the Wakefield Doctrine for the very first time. And, of course, c) my own re-appreciation of how much things have changed since I first started writing this blog… not the content and nature of the Doctrine, rather the nature of the readership and, even more germane, the changes the Wakefield Doctrine has wrought in my own self. So, what say I give it try?)

When I was young(er), I retained an unshakeable faith in two things: a) my friends and b) my capacity to endure and survive. Now I am no longer younger. More to the point, (of this post), I am now possessed of an understanding of my predominant worldview (clark/Outsider) and that enables me to see a lot more of the ‘why’ of my behavior and beliefs, actions and responses to the people and the world around me. This is an improvement. This knowledge, this insight into the way that ‘I relate myself to the world around me’, does not, in and of itself, change anything. It does, however, make any desired change much more attainable and sustainable. That is the good of the knowing of the Wakefield Doctrine.

The title today? (And the introduction above, that suggests that perhaps writing a Post to appeal specifically to the brand new clarklike Reader, might be more difficult than I think?) All of what underlies, and thereby giving rise to the sentiment manifested in the subtitle remains true in me, in all clarks. I still have the …. er…. not so positive self-concept that is the initial premise shaping the worldview of the Outsider, and I still, very much value the friends that I have. Most of us, (including rogers and scotts), will recognize, in the second half of the sub-title an implication, a… ‘yes but’, a ‘hedge’, if you will, on the claim to being valued by others. There is something to the way the statement sounds that is a hallmark of the clarklike personality type. It’s necessary to a clark, this ‘hedging’ of a claim of self-worth or value (to others), a pre-defensive defensive, if you will.

You want a physical example of what I’m trying to convey? (It’s also a primary characteristic of clarks.) Watch a clark smile. Most of time, especially when ‘in public’ or not in a totally secure environment, which is pretty much everywhere except bed or the bathroom, clarks will smile by compressing the lips, putting a slight upwards motion to the corners of the mouth, while watching the other person very carefully. Hedging their bets. Being careful. Keeping the escape route viable. You know, as an Outsider, we’re all about interacting, all while keeping an eye on the door. Find me a classroom, I don’t care if it’s First Grade or Grad School, if the individual student is allowed the choice of seats, you will find a preponderance of clarks in the back row. Near the door. And while one might think that this choice is simply to avoid being noticed, one would be almost correct. It is, in fact, to provide the option to escape, to not be forced into the focus of attention.

That’s part of what the clark personality is like. Tomorrow we may look at scotts, ( ‘I think, therefore I scream‘) or perhaps rogers (‘there is no ‘i’ in herd, there’s only me and everyone like me’)

Since I’m doing kind of a old-style Post, I thought I’d include a music video, well, just because.*

*excuse me!! excuse me!! because, well, holy shit!! (lol) you want to know the real, totally-honest-to-god reason why I find writing Doctrine Posts so ….so incredible? Ok, so I’m finishing up the final edit and I decide… sure, lets keep the music vid, because I love the song. The last thing I needed to do was to find the ‘cover photo’, you know, the Post’s thumbnail that shows only on the landing page. Well I think, ‘lets look for an image associated with Grieg and ‘the Hall of the Mountain King’, (today’s vid)…at the top of the results page is a link to the wikipedia, so naturally I go to read it ( I’m a clark, remember?) anyway, here’s what jumped out of the screen at me, it made me laugh:

The piece is played as the title character Peer Gynt, in a dream-like fantasy, enters “Dovregubben (the troll Mountain King)’s hall”. The scene’s introduction continues: “There is a great crowd of troll courtiers, gnomes and goblins. Dovregubben sits on his throne, with crown and sceptre, surrounded by his children and relatives. Peer Gynt stands before him. There is a tremendous uproar in the hall.” The lines sung are the first lines in the scene.

Grieg himself wrote “For the Hall of the Mountain King I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism, and ‘to-thyself-be-enough-ness’ that I can’t bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt.” The theme of “to thyself be… enough” – avoiding the commitment implicit in the phrase “To thine own self be true” and just doing enough – is central to Peer Gynt’s satire, and the phrase is discussed by Peer and the mountain king in the scene which follows the piece.( italics added) (wikipedia.com)

…no!! really!! lol man! do I love this Wakefield Doctrine!