the Wakefield Doctrine

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

You know how I just got through writing how Christmas is such a clarklike holiday? And how we said that, because clarks are all kinds of self-less and giving and such, that we do Christmas better’n the other two, at least in the old-school sense of the word?  It’s true. clarks do totally rock the Christmas spirit. So, why the developing un-ease as the Day itself is upon us? (Many clarks report a sense of: tiredness, reduced excitement, blunted affect, irritability, anogasmia, a desire to take up smoking cigarettes just to have an excuse to step outside on the porch, and totally be willing to be the one to ‘drive to the store for a couple of items that are needed for Dinner’.)

If you feel that way today or expect to feel that way today*, then we have reassuring news for you. It’s them, it’s not you!

The Christmas Holiday, like so many of the other holidays, (and to be honest, like much of life itself), has a way of being commandeered by one (or both) of the other two personality types.

1. scotts  so many people, so many presents, so many bright lights and things that move and show unmistakable signs of delicious life!  (picture if you will, a lion cub taken from the pack just a season before maturity. the cub has the instinctual and learned survival skills, practiced as much as is possible from a season of play with the other cubs. let the cub skip a few meals and then put him/her in an empty basement and after a day of pumping the aroma of a nice roast beef, take a bushel of hamsters and gerbils and dump them down the laundry chute.**  …Merry Christmas Simba!
2. rogers  there are so many memories that need to be created…no time for frivolity!  don’t you see the scene?!?!  it’s a happy (and grateful), appreciative (and grateful) festive day full of (grateful) family members coming together to enjoy the holiday! so don’t fuck it up with your moodiness and oh-look-I-want-to-be-alone strangeness! this is a once in a year opportunity to come together in a joyous celebration of the family and tradition (well, then…do it outside, ok?)

We kid the rogers and scotts. No, we do!  But we love them as well (as we are able).  New Readers? Well, there are these three ways of experiencing the world and you do it one of the three ways. The Doctrine says that the nature of the way that you see the world is your personality type. OK?  We don’t need to know your likes and dislikes and pet peeves and such. All we need to do (notice we didn’t say, ‘need to know from you‘?) is correctly infer how you relate yourself to the world around you. After that everything else sorta takes care of itself. The three ways to ‘relate yourself to the world around you’ are:

1. as an Outsider. from as far back as you can remember (and it’s pretty far back), you have looked at the people in your life and wondered  where you dropped the ball, what you missed learning about how to be the way they clearly are…together and, (from this early early time in your life), you have resolved to learn what they seem to already know, all while trying not to be identified as a person who was left out… Merry Christmas  clarks!
2. as a Predator. you wonder why some people think, “oh what an unkind thing to say, calling that nice girl a Predator“, you don’t give it a second thought and you know why? (no, we know that you don’t know why, because you don’t give a shit about the why’s and the ‘oh-if-only-I-knew-more‘), because you are too busy living…living a life that is full of threats and opportunity, fun and danger, excitement and the occasional quiet moments of sleep, you know what you are… you’re alive!!!!  Merry Christmas  scotts
3. as a Member of the Herd. and no, you don’t walk around thinking I am a Member of the Herd, we get that. What you do is live a life that is full of potential and hard work, enjoying some pleasures but only when earned, people all around you who you can help live a better life….a Right Way and a universe that was designed to be understood and shared with the future generations, both real and imagined… Merry Christmas rogers

New Readers? Still with us?  Good. So you have one of these as your predominant worldview, (the character of your personal reality), but you never lose the capacity to experience the world as do the other two. So don’t be surprised if you get confused at first seeing in yourself  one personality type and then at times another. That just means you have a significant secondary (or tertiary) aspect. Don’t worry about that now. This is the fun and carefree phase of learning the Wakefield Doctrine. The rest comes later.

To all the DownSprings and Friends of the Doctrine and Readers and such,  thank you for stopping by! Do have the best, dominant worldview-appropriate, day possible today.

clark
(a clark with (a) significant secondary scottian and minimal tertiary rogerian aspects)

*when it comes to emotional response, clarks see no reason to leave them to the last-minute! get ahead of that worry, that concern that fear!! don’t wait!  be prepared!!

** this is a feature in many old, old houses where the washing machine was in the cellar, an opening in the wall of the bathroom closet that was directly above the laundry area… go ahead and put a half full laundry basket for the gerbils to land in… give ’em a better shot at getting away

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

You know how we say, ‘everyone does everything at one time or another’?  This is meant, of course, to help those of us trying to use the Doctrine in our lives, to stay focused on the concept that it is how a thing (or an idea, or a job or a hobby, a career or…a holiday) appears to the individual, given their worldview. The preferred way to express this is, ‘everything in life manifests for the individual as a direct reflection of their predominant worldview’. So a painting like, oh I don’t know,  ‘Christina’s World’  or maybe ‘Nighthawks’ won’t just be perceived differently to a clark than it will to a scott or a roger, it will be a different painting (for the individual).  Same painting …three different realities, therefore three slightly different works of art.

What does this have to do with Christmas gorillas? Everything.  While we will often say that, of the big three holidays, Christmas, is the most clarklike celebration, what we are trying to convey is the sense that the nature of the clarklike worldview and the spirit of giving traditionally associated with this holiday have a lot in common. Another way to say it, ‘clarks can ‘do Christmas’ better than the other two can, (provided we are talking about the self-less giving form of Christmas). This does not mean that scotts and rogers can’t  manage to pull off a successful Xmas! they do!! their’s are just a little…louder  and more  well-put-together.  (“…hey!!!! honey!! you know how you said you would handle the kid’s presents this year?? well…I decided we needed to do more… even if it’s 11:30  you got some extra wrapping paper??  the chainsaw I got Billy keeps ripping the paper…great!!   look at what the guys down at the shop got me…a belt!!  yeah ya know I betcha that is mistletoe!”)  or    (“...now dear, you promised to help decorate the presents this year! how are we going to take Christmas memory photos in the morning if you don’t help me …no, dear, the book says that they would have put the   jasmine, champaka, lotus, lillies, ashoka, nerium/oleander, chrysanthemum, roses, hibiscus, pinwheel flowers, manoranjitam over the doorway, otherwise the incense holders would ignite the pressed leaves!  that’s good  and the roast pig is ready for the oven…be a dear and be sure to take the chutney out of the fridge in the morning and bury it next to the duck liver in the snow bank, no, I’m quite sure that’s how the Vikings celebrated… no, I’m pretty sure that’s not a Viking tradition…I don’t care if the guys at work bought it specially for you…. turn off the lights then, at least…. isn’t this beautiful?  wait!!  wake up the kids  no, it’s only 1:30  they’ve been asleep for hours…we have to get this for the family album… yes, of course they have to get dressed!! hurry before we lose the moment!”)

…this Christmas 2013, all of us at the Wakefield Doctrine are thinking of all you Readers ….you’re all, collectively and individually, the coolest gift a hard-working, well-meaning, ambitious blog writer could hope for…   thank you

The enormity of the Christmas holiday? (from last year’s Christmas Post) It has clear appeal and, in fact, resonates strongly with all three personality types:

• clarks: who love to give…selflessly, and to an extreme, we will give everything that we (think) we have to give, in the hopes of becoming so much a part of the group…which is, in fact all, of you ‘out there in the world’…that we will no longer consider ourselves the Outsiders
• scotts: who love to give because there is so much life and activity inherent in a celebration such as is manifested by Christmas, that all they can do is run around and bark at the lights (or bark using lights), chase down and herd those who gather together on this holiday, never stopping, until without warning, they drop into a sleep, like a 2 month old puppy… wherever they last stood, eyes closed, teeth showing, legs twitching as the chase continues in their dream with the occasional wag of the tale, showing their essentially good natures
• rogers: a tradition and the participation of nearly all people, Christmas has everything they could want and to top it all off, there is the second most feared manifestation of ‘referential authority’ there is:  Santa Claus! …the gift giver who keeps records, verifies those records and rewards and punishes behavior, all by standards that, while thought by most to be understood, are never explicitly stated.

So to all our friends (new and old), those of us here at the Wakefield Doctrine say, ‘Yo Ho Ho’!

(from the provious year’s Xmas Post)… just so you can have the damn song stuck in your head for a week, here is a video of :

And just so you don’t get too warm and cozy, here are the actual lyrics:

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland. (ok nothing too strange, a fairly attractive image, sort of what we remember about the song.)

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland. (still safe, expanding the imagery to include the local fauna, the better to highlight local, seasonal climate changes, safe, safe.)

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown (?)

He’ll say: Are you married? (Who?  me?!, “Am I married”? what the hell are you asking that for?! …and who the fuck is Parson Brown?)
We’ll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you’re in town. (!?! The ground is beginning to feel decidedly spongy…)

Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we’ve made, (Yes! The Plans! “…tell about the Plans, George! tell about the Plans…” )
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he’s a circus clown (No, there is absolutely nothing funny/charming/cute about a circus clown made of snow, standing alone, in a field, un-moving…at the moment)
We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the other kids knock him down. (Other ‘kids’? Exactly how old is this person, I mean he is talking about marriage for Christs sake!)

When it snows, ain’t it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We’ll frolic and play, the Eskimo way, (Yeah great lifestyle choice, eat still-warm animal flesh, kiss with our noses and give birth on an ice floe. Merry Christmas you weird-ass, singing 27-going-on-13 year-old)
Walking in a winter wonderland.

 

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

I am grateful for:

1) the Secret Book of Rules (aka Book of Secret Rules) of the TToT  it’s a way for any and all of us to, from time to time and as the mood may strike us, to put a flashing and/or revolving light on our damn heads and no one will laugh at us (unless, of course, that we picked out a  ‘hey ain’t this light funny?’ light)

2) the number Ten  …how much of our lives has centered around this small but neat quantity? I’ll tell you… it is not the huge number of times, it’s the huge importance of  that which is centered around ’10’  (“…I’m going to count to, close your eyes and count backwards… home many do you think you had… and this many fingers make?” )

3) the internet which permits us to be the people that: we want to be, would hope to be, are afraid that we really are, pray that no one discovers what we are really like, know we can do better, believe that there are worse ways to be, meet the people we would be intimidated by in RL, know that if we just had a minute without that voice in our heads saying the same thing over and over as it has for a lifetime…

4) the eternal (and at times, slightly suggestive and way sexy) Seven GuardVirgins  (and to  Cyndi for alerting us to their existence)

5) music videos which allow us to not just say something profound/funny/sexy/important/silly  but to do it loud!!  (3 of my favorites:

6)  the simplest of facts: while we all recognize the ‘advisability of being grateful’ and the ‘beneficial effects of gratitude lists’  all of these are a whisper in a hurricane when compared to seeing the effects in people you have come to know… with the added (slightly scottian) benefit of seeing the changes in another before they see it in themselves

7) the Wakefield Doctrine for it’s  oddly disturbing, but always impressive insights into the behavior of the people in (my)(your)(their) lives

8) photos… the ones that I put at the top of virtually every Post… now there’s a Post in and of itself… why that photo with that Post?  (for those of you who do this photo thing in your own blog know… I’m constantly surprised/delighted/amused/frightened by the end product ….because,  on some Posts, the photo comes first and on others it is a followup

9) Summer is finally here!!  (ask anyone: they will smile and say, ‘yeah, he does this perspective thing…no, not that perspective thing… this other perspective thing)

10) Secret Rule 1.3  (the first discovered Secret Rule and one of the best!)