relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 22 relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 22

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 27, 2022 By

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

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop.

Each week, our host, Dyanne, invites one and all to participant to an exercise in cultivating gratitude.

Well, not exercise, in the, “Jeez, I promised myself that I’d do twenty-three minutes and either the clock on my phone is slow, or, like oft-reported from near-death experiences the brain has accelerated (though no where near my heart-rate) and time has slowed down. To. A. Crawl!!”

The value of Lizzi’s creation, the TToT, is, imo, two-fold: all are invited to enjoy a rich variety of posts, each offering an engaging and elegant insight into one the most ephemeral of psycho-emotional states: gratitude, while courtesy of the not inconsiderable skill of each writer, conveying their experiences in a manner both inspiring and entertaining. As a perhaps unintended consequence, the process leaves the metaphorical door open so that we, equally inspired, arguably less subtle writers here at the Wakefield Doctrine blog enjoy an opportunity to offer our… err own list.

Following are people, places and things that have caused us to say, “Damn! Almost what we wanted from the world, fortunately not, strictly-speaking, what we deserve.”

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine “sine qua non, y’all, sine qua non”

4) the Six Sentence Story the place for stories that are like 15 cent hamburgers. Sorry, this Grat requires semi-accurate memory and a certain tenure on this mortal coil. When .15 hamburgers were a novelty, they didn’t burn all the Michelin books. That said, were you a kid at the time… it was, well, a kid’s rehearsal of upcoming adulthood, i.e. go out to eat without your parents.

5) (the) Six Sentence Café and Bistro A new and quite interesting landmark in the virtual world atlas. Go over to the aforementioned Six Sentence Story bloghop and ask them. (Tell ’em the Doctrine sent ya.)

6) the Proprietors seven figures in the developing mythos of the virtual nightspot, eatery, social club and Reading Room cited in Grat 5

7) this is a marker for the first social event at the SSC&B (#5 again!) We’re going all Bifröst on the weekly activities of Denise’s blog, with a book launch on Friday. Stay tuned!

8) 21st Century technologies…well, duh!

9) something, something

10) S.R. 1.3 (From the Book of Secret Rules, aka the Secret Book of Rules), the Codex Regius of this here bloghop here, the BoSR/SBoR allows, nay, encourages, the free ranging prose oft witnessed in these pages.

 

music vids

*

*

*

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Share
Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: , ,

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 25, 2022 By

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

 

Weather-centric reprint today, from February 2013.

…as in, nine years ago.

Don’t tell anyone, but when I go way back in the records looking for a reprint, there is, sometimes, a moment of suspense, usually when I open a post that is the result of the younger writer being in a mood experimentale.* Yet there has not been a moment that I have felt self-conscious about what I’ve written. And, for a clark** this is huge. Self-consciousness is nothing less than the air we breathe.

So, without further skidoo, a post with a way-long, fairly-amusing title:

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the craziness of clarks, the really stupidness of scotts and the astonishing dumbness of rogers)

My pre-dominantely clarklike worldview has me writing this Post, apologizing in advance for it and…. still hitting ‘Publish’.

 

The North American culture is officially designated, ‘predominately rogerian‘ on the basis of the activity surrounding the upcoming WEATHER EMERGENCY, aka ‘a pretty decent snowstorm’. I suppose I should qualify the rest of this mercifully short Post, with a statement to the effect that it is not being written for the benefit of any of our rogerian Readers.
However, I would be shirking my duties as, Articulator-in-Chief, if I did not remind everyone that the second most important principle of the Wakefield Doctrine (the 1st being that our ‘worldviews’ do, in fact, constitute reality, albeit, personal reality), is that while we all live in a pre-dominant worldview, we retain the qualities of the ‘other two’ personality types. (And) these manifest to varying degrees in how we perceive and react to events in our daily lives.

In any event, we are witnessing the rogerian worldview, as reflected in the news/weather/warning information-yelling of the Media that is/are an integral part of our culture (as it is in all cultures). This is one of the few times when ‘age’ offers a legitimate advantage1. The reason for this statement is that the older the individual, the more the contrast in ‘cultural-standards-over-time stands out. Just as cars were bigger and a whole lot un-safer in the 1950’s, the Role/Responsiblity of the State in protecting the lives and health of the members (of the State), has grown from  hardly noticeable to the current state in which snow storms have names. (yeah, just like Hurricanes!).  I used to laugh at the titles of the cheesy movies on the SciFi Channel, like ‘Anacondasaur’  or ‘Piranhasaurus Rex’ until this last Autumn.  Then we had our first official SuperStorm.  ( The plot development of the semi-hit movie, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ spent a lot of time showing  satellite photos of the three giant storms that were about to totally fuck up the northern hemisphere… apparently this movie is now required viewing by our friends at the National Weather Service… I mean, how could anyone deny that Sandy was so a SuperStorm. Did you see how far those clouds reached?)

I apologise for indulging in my clarklike aspect (‘outrage’2) and will simply say, ‘Hey rogers! I get it. You are not really worried or concerned about health and safety. You just enjoy having a sense of the herd. Like being at a party, the person you are standing across from is not why you will say the party ‘sucked’ or ‘was awesome’, it will be how many people were there.
I get it. At least, I should, the Wakefield Doctrine tells us everything we need to know about how people act and react. For that matter, the Wakefield Doctrine rightly states that you will ‘not only know why a person acts the way that they do, but you will know how they will act in situations that have not yet occurred‘.

Thank you for your readation.3

(I promise to get back to Eve tomorrow…. yeah, scott  I get it!)

 

1) In no way to be confused or conflated with the totally indulgent belief that ‘this younger generation doesn’t know how to: dance/play music/make movies/have sex/make love/take drugs/study for the Big Exam/live a Decent Life/get the most out of Life/not screw things up so much

2)  We clarks see things happen that don’t make sense and when we cannot get a reasonable explanation we get upset….worse, when we see other people seemingly not notice this ‘unreasonable thing’ then we let ourselfs  get all  ‘outraged’ and such. We should not.

3) the photo is kind of indulgent?  well duh!  what part of the tome of this Post did you not get! lol

 

* no, not a ‘real’ French expression or idiom or even picaresque oberservation… but you really should have your in-head voice pronounce it: ‘moo deh x pera men tahl‘. It’s a lot more fun

** sorry, there are over twenty-seven million words written on the subject, go search the archives, if’n you’re wondering. Better yet, ask your question in the comments.

Share
Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: , , , ,

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “(an) early Valentine’s Day post”

February 11, 2022 By

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

Shuffling through some old (old) posts this morning. Came across the following. Sort of a nice memory. The post was written in 2011.

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

This is a photo of my friend Bernadine Thomas and me (your Humble Narrator), taken about 10 years ago. Bernadine died  unexpectedly a couple of years ago.

(As often happens with clarks and scotts)  it was nearly love at first sight with Bernadine*.  Simply was one of those clark/scott things. I met  Bernadine when she came to work at a market and credit research company – I was experimenting with having a ‘real job’ in the ‘real world’. The company I worked for had their offices in Providence, on Westminster Street, and most important (to my story here) was that I worked in one of those cubicle workstation things,  at my desk from 9-5, Monday through Friday, calling  manufacturing companies all over the world, trying to get them to give me information about their use of raw materials. In other words, it was a very rogerian work environment, but one in which a clark could  ‘pass’ as an employee.  I had been working there for about 6 months when Bernadine was hired and moved into a nearby cubicle.

To set the stage for my meeting Bernadine,  picture an entire floor of an office building with the front of the floor (at the windows) being divided into three offices for the owners of the Company and the rest of the space taken up with clusters of cubicles. These were ‘open clusters’ which meant you could spin your chair to the 2 other people in your cluster or, with a little extra push, be out in the aisle where you could see what was going on in the rest of the office.   On one wall, located in the middle of the office was the elevator and directly across was the main conference room, which  had glass walls on three sides (windows on the 4th wall) and a large conference table in the middle. Totally visible from all the cubicles…think of  TV with the Mute on.
I will never forget the day that Bernadine came to interview for a job, as the interview was held in the conference room. (It will help to know that the demographic of the Company was typical for the industry (and) for our part of the country, i.e. mostly female and nearly all white…not counting the Asian guy in IT).  Bernadine, as characteristic of all scotts, not only had ‘presence’, but being a large woman,  the minute she walked into the conference room, it was obvious to all of us that she was totally owning that room. Keep in mind, no one  could hear the conversation that was going on in the conference room, except that is, when Bernadine laughed.  As with scotts ( male and female), when Bernadine laughed you noticed!  (…her’s was not one of those annoying, odd or quirky laughs), when she laughed it was full, un-restrained… totally without reservation or  pre-requisite…simply enjoying herself.
Bernadine was hired.
As we got to know each other, I began to tell Bernadine about the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers.  Bernadine made a lasting contribution to the Wakefield Doctrine.  One afternoon, I asked her about the ‘dominance thing’. I told her about how scotts will always challenge everyone in the immediate environment, in order to establish the ranking order. But then I asked Bernadine a direct question, ‘What happens when you are not the dominant one?”  Bernadine’s response was simple, ‘Nothing happens! It’s not a bad thing to be second in ranking! And…and…are you listening to me?  It isn’t  ‘better’ to be the alpha! All that matters is that we know where we stand ‘  This was a revelation that not only added to my understanding of scotts but reinforced my understanding of the fact that we all live in slightly different realities. As a clark, the concept of not being at the top could be nothing but a negative thing, it simply never could occur to me.

(Two experiences that tell you a lot about Bernadine and all about scotts…)

Bernadine’s cubicle was in the cluster (of cubicles) adjacent to the one that I worked in with another market analyst, by the name of Charlie;  a young kid, just out of college, smart, and competent  but Charlie had a habit of  sleeping at his desk in the afternoon. One afternoon Charlie awoke from his after-lunch nap, loudly grumbling about how much work he had to do and for reasons still unknown, I said in a fairly loud voice, “…It’s been a long winter, and Mr Charlie is starting to wake, while things have changed since the Autumn, one thing is still true..he is hungry…and surely will need to get out of the burrow”  (I was, of course,  hearing the classic Disney Nature Film Narrator voice in my head).
The immediate and unmistakeable peals of laughter coming over the cubicle wall on Bernadine’s side were worth it all. It was at this moment we became friends.

The second experience came at the end of my employment at that company.

I was called into the  office of my (rogerian) boss late one Friday afternoon. He did all the talking and it was mostly about him and his difficult responsibilities and how I surely must understand how it was that he had to let me go.  And, being a roger of major proportions he assumed that I would be embarrassed to inform my co-workers of my imminent departure. He asked me if I wanted him to make up a reason that would explain my not working there anymore or did I want to make up a reason…
I said, ‘No thank you, I will take care of it, first thing Monday morning’. He seemed satisfied with this plan and I left the office and went home (by this time it was past ‘quitting time’).
When I got home,  the totality of what had happened finally began to sink in, (I have mentioned that I am a clark, haven’t I?), and I decided that I needed to call Bernadine. (This was noteworthy, as while we were workfriends, we did not socialize outside of the office. I had  never before called her at her home.)
But call I did.
After the surprise of,  “Hi Bernadine, this is Clark…from work, you know?  wore off,  Bernadine  asked, ‘What’s wrong?” My response was simply, “They fuckin let me go today”

Bernadine’s next words were, “Alright. Tell me exactly what happened. And, don’t leave anything out!”

I still miss Bernadine, she was such a scott.

1)  love being defined (by a clark)  as “this person not only is not suspicious of me and/or my behavior…they seem to actually enjoy my company!”

*

 

Share
Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: , , ,

Reprint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

January 31, 2022 By

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

This just in…

Funny thing, though, went looking for a post written on the 31st of January and got as far as 2014 …without finding one. The following is from 2012. It’s a fairly comprehensive ‘Origins post.

(from January 30th 2012)

In a recent Video Friday Interview, when asked what changes or additions might improve the blog, Claire Peek suggested  providing insight into the ‘why of the Wakefield Doctrine’. (As Claire put it  “…A new Reader might find interesting how the Doctrine was born but especially why….”  )

Far be it from us to shy away from a difficult task, in this case it is not so much a matter of the (historical) record of how the Wakefield Doctrine came to be, but rather the personal side of that creation/evolution/development. That is the challenge for today.

Easy part first!  The ‘Eureka Moment of the  Wakefield Doctrine ( nee the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers ):

In the early 1980’s, Scott (the progenitor scott) worked at a music store in Pawtucket. He was the main salesman and also ran the repair department (of the store), this included not only repairing musical instruments and equipment that he sold, but any equipment that might be in need of repair, including various types of tape recorders and other similar equipment.

One day I happened to stop by the store to visit scott while he worked. While there, a customer came into the store, went to the ‘repair department where scott and I were talking and presented to scott what was known as a  ‘duel cassette recorder’  (This device had the capacity to record two cassette cartridges at once and was most often used to copy the contents of one cassette to another cassette, what we would call today, making a back up. Among the controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ were two of all the normal tape recorder controls: volume, treble and bass. Where it was different from a single cassette recorder was that it had a Master Volume control dial, which, as the name implies controlled the overall sound output of the device.) The recorder that the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and had no signs of damage or abuse. (As the customer approached the counter, 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 recorder briefly, without saying a word and then reached under the counter and brought out some (black) 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). After completing this, scott slid the device back over towards the customer and simply said, “ There, its all right now”

The customer asked to plug in the recorder, took a cassette from his pocket, tried the recorder, ran it through it’s paces; seeing that the broken tape recorder that he brought into the store now worked like new  thanked scott and walked out of the store without another word. A totally satisfied customer.

From my perspective the world shifted. For reasons not clear to this day, I not only saw what scott had seen (the nature of the equipment problem) but I saw that his solution implied a reality, a ‘context’ that was clearly different from the one that I assumed to be the same as everyone experienced.

That is the factual side of the creation of the Wakefield Doctrine. The personal side?

I had plenty of friends. Or more to the fact, I had a close circle of friends that I seemed to have acquired rather deliberately.  Sometimes, when I hear or read about people expressing anxiety about making new friends in a new school or a changed job, I will laugh to myself. I still find (in the fact of) my own comfort that this thing that real people seem to worry about, (i.e.making friends) is really so not difficult while at the same time/all the time, I feel so isolated from people in general. And the irony of this is not wasted on me! I accept now (as I did back then)  that this is just another aspect to the weird world that I inhabit.
In any event, back to the ‘personal side of the creation of the Wakefield Doctrine, I knew back then that I had two things I could count on: having a small circle of friends who ‘got me’ and living with a pervasive, never-ending sense of lacking something…  fitting in, being a part of, knowing what I was supposed to be doing in order to be like everyone else. Call it what you like, it is this certainty that ‘I am different from’ and  because ‘I am missing something’ that defines who I am and once I figure out what (or where) that missing thing is, I will no longer be different from everyone else.
I suspected then, (as I now know for certain) that the thing I needed to understand was right in front of me, but not having a clue as to what it was like, the only thing to do was try to watch everything.
Watching is not exactly synonymous with living, ( lol a joke for the clarks reading this) and so I would settle for watching as I knew that the life that I thought I was in was not really the ‘real life’ that everyone else seemed to be enjoying.
Finally, the moment described above, the scene in the music store. That I would make the leap from what I observed to what I knew, what I concluded (about reality and people) was nothing less than a total frickin gift… if I had a stronger rogerian aspect, I imagine I would go on at length about inspired insight, or serendipity but I do not have that strong a rogerian aspect. If the truth is not obvious, I have a strong (barely restrained) secondary scottian aspect. But that is a whole ‘nother Post.
So as the Lady once said, ‘that’s how it began’.

OK!!  Time to close the Post, unfortunately on  sad note…as I know that most of you already know,  Robert Hegyes passed away late last week. So we will close with the theme song to his, chef-d’œuvre

 

You looking for the Bonus Inset?  Right this way, yo. This is a clip from a Post written last July, very good explanation of the clark, scott roger thing!  We figured, hey this layout really needs shaking up, so lets do an overlay Title/new Content*

The Wakefield Doctrine has 3 personality type categories: clarks, scotts and rogers. You are mostly one (of these 3) but you still have the other 2 in background.
…and when we say personality types? what we mean is, “What kind of world do you walk out to every morning”?  Because this Doctrine is not about your likes and dislikes, favorite colors or foods, interests, hobbies, avocation or inspiration. It is about the nature of your reality.

Yes, you read that right. Reality. Each of the three types of personality in the Wakefield Doctrine experience a different reality. Nothing weird or earth-shakingly different. No crystals or herbs or inner vibrations required either. Just this:

  • clarks exist (in the world) as the perennial outsider. They are normal in every other respect, it’s just that they know that they don’t belong, they are not like other people. But, at the same time clarks are the quiet, creative, funny (except you have to really pay attention or you’ll miss their jokes), self-deprecating, hardworking people that are there all around you all this time;
  • scotts are so in your life (and you will get this description only if you are not a scott) but they are the natural leaders, natural salespeople, natural entertainers… you getting the theme here with this personality type? natural. scotts are the people who live life by the moment without restraint, consideration, forethought, it’s a wonder they live as long as they do
  • rogers (you know who you are, and right now you are denying it) rogers are the everyday, friendly, easy to talk to people that populate every workplace and classroom and corner bar. rogers will be the person you turn to when you have a secret and rogers will be the one you turn to when you want to learn the latest gossip, they are the engineers, the lawyers, the doctors and heart and soul of every PTA and neighborhood watch program in the world.

The Doctrine is different from all the other mainstream and respectable personality and self-improvement systems out there because we insist that it is not just you, it is the world itself that accounts for your life, it’s trials and tribulations, good times, bad times (we know you’ve had your share).
What sets us apart and the reason you should spend time here, is that the Wakefield Doctrine offers everyone a set of tools that is specifically meant for not only your personality type, but (these tools) are meant to work and be useful in the world that you are living in today!

*

Share
Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: , , ,

Friday postette -the Wakefield Doctrine-

January 21, 2022 By

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

Was the alternate choice of photos for yesterday’s Six Sentence Story.

Before we ‘head out into the world’ today. (lol… as sure an indicator of the speaker/writer being a clark as would be (their) answer to the question: Two plus Two equals?)…a quick word about our little personality theory. It’s as useful (and fun) as you chose it to be today. Sorta like that first date you were set up on by your best friends. It’s all in how you feel about it. Ya know?

Take the descriptions of the three predominant worldview and try and see the world as the other person is experiencing it today. When you do that, you will know, for the moment/in that particular situation, more about the other person than they know about themselfs. And…and! when practiced sufficiently well/often,  you will enhance how you relate yourself to the world around you.

(Not a bad thing to do, when you think about it.)

(from January 21, 2011)

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

Lets talk.

The Wakefield Doctrine is a ‘theory of personality’ the same way that your grandmother or mother (or wife or husband) is a chef. What they can do is produce food that you and your family look forward to eating and of course, everyone enjoys and benefits from their efforts both as  food and (as) a social occasion. Not only that,  your husband or wife or boyfriend or grandmother uses most of the same tools and ingredients and equipment that Le Cordon Bleu chef will use. Both will work with food in a kitchen environment that is essentially the same  and (all) produce meals that are good and good for you, the only difference:

your grandmother will never be on television, your mom will never write a book that will be found in bookstores, your wife or your husband will never have a meal named after them (on the menu of a restaurant).

Who is the better cook?

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine.

Do not think that we are apologizing for our grandmothers or our lack of empirical date (supporting this here theory of clarks, scotts and rogers, here). We are not. But just because the techniques and tricks and recipes of your “family chef” have certain limitations, does not preclude us  from being determined to try and rise above the confines of the ‘novelty blog’ category with the Wakefield Doctrine. Point in fact, it is the goal of all involved with this blogsite to take what we have learned about human personality and behavior and, with no small amount of chutzpah, put it in front of as many people as possible. Our very immodest intent is quite simply to get people to see the world through the lens of our little Doctrine.

There is no “WHY?” question here. (The only possible answer would be, “Why not?”)  To take that approach would have the fault of being  un-necessarily modest. Our intent is, with all of the means available to us,  presenting/promoting/publicising/pushing the Wakefield Doctrine in order to have some effect on the world, if only 30 or 40 people worth. Maybe more than that, (perhaps 300 or 400) people will read about this thing and find the same usefulness that we do and these people will benefit from having come to this blog and learned about our ‘theory or personality’.
But hey,  everyone starts out as someone’s son/husband/brother/grandson/girlfriend/yeah,they used to live right down the street before they turned into a celebrity or an authority or a mover or a shaker (the Hollywood variety not the Pennsylvania type).
Take Martha Stewart (…”please”) she was someones mother at a point in time prior to becoming a valued NYSE listed commodity…might have been your mother, but probably not. She was Alexis’s mother

Be that as it may. Lets take a quick look at our “cookbook” so that  our more credential-dependent Readers can continue to enjoy this blog and still get something useful from your visit today.

clarks: quiet but always manage to get noticed, introspective but aggressive, creative and intellectual yet capable of blindingly stupid stubbornness when they believe they have an understanding of the situation;
scotts: free-spirited extroverts who feed on the discomfort of others, natural leaders who inspire confidence and will spring into action regardless of how ill-conceived the action or ill-prepared for the unexpected they might be;
rogers: precise and exact and they would have invented OCD (if it had not already existed), sociable, likable and prone to extreme prejudice, with the right tools they will build the infrastructure of the civilized world just so they will have people to pass judgement on

Thats a pretty basic set of ‘recipes’ or down-home culinary technique, isn’t it?
Don’t you think your grandmom had fun teaching your mother to cook on cold winter evenings? The food at your house? doesn’t it taste as good as the food you could learn to prepare by spending 5 years in a culinary school? No? You think the chef, by virtue of all their formal training  is better off? Well, here is a little look at their world

 

*

 

Share
Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »