relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- Memoir Tuesday Late Edition

December 20, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

~~Let us continue our discussion (description?) of the efficacy of the Wakefield Doctrine in the matter of self-improvement.~~

~~Sure, we get it. You’re thinking, ‘oh man! Not another, ‘Find the Force within. Accept your inner strength, Stand over there and close your eyes.’~~

~~No, wait. We’re not saying that. At lease not two out of three of them.~~

This reminds us of another issue that could use updating and/or clarification: is it personal reality (mini-existences with their own sets of tiny Laws of Physics, Consequences, Original Sin and such) or is it ‘the character of the relationship we develop with the world around us and the people who make it up?’

Wait! Missed the window yesterday. Let’s just say: ‘the Wakefield Doctrine is a nearly-unearned but, nevertheless inspired insight into the nature of human reality. We got the original starting point in the early 1980s (i.e. the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers), played with the idea for twenty-five years, and, in June 2009, sat down at the keyboard and started this blog. The content/posts that followed reflected both the excitement of this gift and effects of the Wakefield Doctrine itself on us, the curator.

Anyway. That keeps us on track for the ‘every Tuesday a Memoir post’ thing. (Quick Reminder: the first goal of any self-renovation is to practice deliberate habit formation.)

Don’t Forget! Tonight at 6:00 pm the doors open for this week’s Six Sentence Story bloghop. Good reading and, not to lay any unnecessary pressure on y’all but chances are you’ve got a hankerin to see your story in the glow of crystal diodes. Well, don’t hold back. Write, Link. Enjoy the company of others who feel the more doors into alternate reality we leave open, the better the conditions in the ‘real’ world will be.

quick RePrint.

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

September 16, 2015

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!

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

(cool Greco-Latin word for memory/recollection: HERE) -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 12, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

A wise(ish) person once said, ‘The first step to self-improvement is developing one’s capacity to form habits. For all its bad rep, (or is that, ‘bad rap’?), creating habits is the surest path to Heaven.’

Damn! The things wise people get to say. (Funny you should ask. Wait ’til you see the symbol ^eR. The check lower on the page. Hopefully there will be some tidbit of new insight into everyone’s favorite personality typing blog.

But here we are again. Tuesday. Attic boxes all around in a circle like we were in the jungle.

Some continuity if you will: (First, Second, Third and Previous Memoir posts)

Damn! We’re going to have to settle on some convention for designating Memoir Posts. One that doesn’t require the copy/paste of links to the pertinent articles.

Hey. The ‘real’ world ate the balance of this post!

… remind us to get more, in the sense of greater percentage of the writing, done earlier than 11-fricken-o-clock!

Thankfully the Wakefield Doctrine is a standalone tool/alternate perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up.

^eR Let’s all agree that this superscript will designate ‘the Everything Rule’. Figure with something like that, the new Reader will stop and ask themselves if they’re really sure what kind of random, personality-type blog they’ve got themselfs into. To the point at hand:

What we designated being in the dominion of the Everything Rule is: How does the choice of ‘wiseman/woman/person’ manifest in the three predominant worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine?

Who would employ/deploy which? You’re gonna laugh but its: roger, scott and clark. lol* Thought experiment/contest for future branded clothing items: Why is that true? Tell us in Comments.

*no, you’re welcome

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

Memoir Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 5, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

Still haven’t settled on a title/label/subtitle for this series. (First, Second and Third)

(We have found, mostly through writing RePrint Mondays that a ‘previously on…’ is an enormous help in this type of blogging. Not, as you might think, tho’ in turn, not totally incorrectly, simply put: to remember the narrative that preceded the current post* is sufficient, however, to read the actual text is conducive and, therefore more to the mood/spirit/’yeah! that’s what I was going for’.)

previously on…

Will not go into the full Wakefield Doctrine origin story. It’s: Here. We’re making reference to it today only because this post is reminding us of how unlikely it is to have written more than 2,913 posts and received in excess of 32,000 comments!¹

But that’s not important right now.²

The point that is elbowing it’s way to the topic section of this week’s Memoir post is: there is no way I would have been capable of writing this blog without some serious serendipity.

But, with the idea that today a new Reader might be standing in the upper back of the room (stadium-slant auditorium of course. hey, it’s our fantasy) lets wrap up this week’s train wreck with:

The thing about clarks that is both wonderful and maybe a little sad is that we find that discovering novelty in understanding an otherwise, mostly, incomprehensible world as being fun. Fun in the sense of a five-year-old opens a Christmas present. Promise. Excitement. Satisfaction. All drive the Outsider to smile when encountering either a novel aspect of the world or find ourselves down a path we had not consciously intended to follow. Hence the predilection for quantum story telling (i.e. we forget or willfully neglect the fact that our listeners have not encountered all the facts). And…and! the ease with which we go all neologism on spelling and data and facts. To the point of this paragraph: clarks have a lack of concern about one thing: our commitment to curiosity.

The ‘little sad’ aspect of this, we’ll leave for another Tuesday.

* my dear sweet god! is that the level of entanglement inherent in the literal representation of my writer’s thought process?!?! ba’kha Yeshua** (John 11:35)

** and there it is! the purpose of seemingly random thoughts thrown at an LCD blackboard! to remind ourselfs of a particular stream-of-thought in a section of a river with no name (aka ‘Where we were trying to go with this post’)

ok, being raised with proper blogger manners, half of the 32k would be my replies to comments. that still leaves 17k*** of real people. So, lets consider if it’s possible for all 15,000 to be ‘I want the time you stole with that post that made no sense whatever, I want it back!!’ comments. lets do the division. Round up for the math 3,000 posts divided by 16,000 comments ….
Airplane! of course.

*** who said that a clark’s propensity for neologisms was limited to words? (malapmath might be the proper term for deliberate incorrect math and stuff. sure let’s go with that)

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

RePrint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 4, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

As to the thought, ‘What more is there to say about a theory of personality that has three types and is predicated on (one’s) relationship with the world around them?’

Not so much more information, as with better style. Rather than recitation of data, (an ongoing) demonstration of effects and consequences in the real world.

In other words, the actual topic of pretty much every Wakefield Doctrine post is on any given day, which at the moment would be Monday, we ask: how does this day of the week/that particular occupation/going to the gas station/trying to get ‘A’s in school or find love in a relationship, manifest in the reality of the Outsider (clarks), the world of the Predator (scotts) and the life of the Herd Member (rogers)?

This topic, i.e. reprint posts came up on the call-in show this weekend past. The Why and (the) is it an irredeemable fault or, at least, a less than.

Our position was, in the context of RePrint Monday, was that it was like a prompt, a warm-up, if you will. Not to give away too much insight into the early years, gots to save something for the next installment of our weekly series: ‘عمر خیّام Tuesdays’ * ¹ ‘Hey!!’ (Last week’s installment: Here)

Believe it or not, three hundred fity words in and we’s still gonna post a RePrint post.

Come back tomorrow! Subscribe or like or, better yet, tell someone you encounter in your day today to come here and read and such.

sun don’t shine, the gods look down in anger

December 3, 2009

(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).

* ¹ ‘Hey!! lol we apologize to any New Reader who might be a roger with a secondary clarklike aspect on a razor’s balance between getting mad and clicking away or staying to see this if Doctrine thing might not be kinda fun. The clarklike autosome that contains the code for ‘ain’t no reference too obscure that it can’t be fun! should never, ever be underestimated as to the effect it exerts in the life of an Outsider. (The reference to Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī** will pay off in future Tuesday posts.)

** lighten up… like you didn’t see that coming? we’re just messin’ with any rogers in the Readerverse***

*** damn right we’re claiming that word! Unless someone (most likely another clark) has already coined the term.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology Tagged With: personality types, relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “a memoir is to history as a story is to reality”

November 28, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

We had a story in mind, towards the end of last week, that felt like a good one to re-tell as part of whatever this Tuesday thing is trying to become. Unfortunately it’s been lost in the clutter of the daily effort to a) stay on the Path with Heart* and 2) be on the alert for the best inciting incident to push this project along.

We left ourselfs last week with the definition of ‘the Everything Rule’. This is, of course, the…

damn! just went back and reviewed the previous post. We’re tempted to re-take a narrative path that was here, in this post, before I sicc’d the back-delete cursor on the words.

Here’s a question: does writing a memoir (or history or biography or simply a story of a tool for better understanding the world around us) necessarily require… Wait. Stop. We answered our own question.

But what does survive, this (most recent) attempt to sabotage our effort to write the definitive book on the Wakefield Doctrine, is the use of the term ‘manifest’ in the context of the three predominant worldviews.

As an adjunct (or extension or some cool term of rhetoric) to the Everything Rule is the recognition that how a thing manifests in the reality of the Outsider (clark) or the world of the Predator (scott) or the life of the Herd Member (roger) is directly affected by the character of the person’s relationship with the world.

Enough. Time has run out for this Tuesday.

That said, permit us to take refuge in what constitutes one of the most important gifts we’ve received over the years. Specific to this week’s Memoir post is the insight that it is easier to edit than it is to write (on a blank page)*.

Remind us to do two things in next Tuesday’s post: a) go into why the Wakefield Doctrine is of use to clarks, as opposed to scotts and rogers, and 2) tell the story of ‘The Spot that Moved’.

* interesting that I feel a push-back on this idea from both my scottian and my rogerian aspects. each for a different ‘reason’. But we are exploring the concept of how things manifest differently in each of the three. Won’t attempt to go too deeply, but a scott would favor the illusion of energy inherent in a ‘single take’ and a roger would sow doubt about anything that wasn’t already an effective narrative.

[in the interest of not being short-sighted in the case of maintaining this effort to chronicle the development of the Wakefield Doctrine, here, in reverse order, are previous installments: