relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday Reprint -the Wakefield Doctrine-

November 8, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

Today is Monday. As regular Readers will acknowledge, that makes what follows a reprint Doctrine post.

Nothing wrong with that. What we have this Monday morning is what we call a reflexive reprint post. This would be a reprint inspired by a contemporary post. In today’s case, one written by someone else.

Co-Sixiac*, Paul wrote a most enjoyable post today centered on the fairy tale, Rapunzel. It, (his post), reminded us of two things: 1) how abusive cultures and their standards of behavior can be towards children can be and b) how much we enjoy writing about them. So head over to Paul’s for a warm up, (he does mad research on the variations on the story), and then come back here.

Lets see what we wrote in April of 2013

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

Melanie and Janine and them wrote a Comment saying how much they enjoyed our little look at the Fairy Tale ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and went on to say how they were looking forward to today’s Post as we continued our analysis of these cultural icons vis-à-vis the Wakefield Doctrine. Being a clark and all, I am certainly not one to ignore a request, even if I did have a perfectly good ‘re-print Post’ all set to go for today. It was a Post from the first full year of the blog, replete to references to the foreign exchange students at Millard Fillmore High and there might even be a mention of our favorite valedictorian, and all-around cool co-ed, Janie Sullivan. It (this Post that was to have run today), even had something resembling a survey meant to determine personality types. The writing is a little rough, but it was fun to read. (Have I indulged in being rogerian enough in my un-gracious acquiescence to Melanie’s and Janine’s request yet?) No? Well how about this: for a personality type that is hardly ever accused of wearing our hearts on our sleeves, clarks place the feelings of others way, way before their own. Even if the other person does not explicitly state that their feelings or emotional state are at risk, clarks will invariably think, ‘it would be awful if their feelings were hurt’ or thoughts to that effect. Simple empathy? …or the hint of something deeper, something more inextricably tied to the worldview of the Outsider? Well, think about it… but first a little Fairy tale Doctrine-style!

Jack and the Beanstalk: (that’s right!, this is a movie now), I guess I don’t have to expound on the role of Fairy Tales as indoctrination for the totally impressionable members of society. Well, yes I do. Ask yourselfs ‘who, of all the potential audience for these tales of violence, greed, subservience and rogerian membership is the one group (demographic, if you will) who has zero choice in being exposed to the sick, sick message that most of these tales are disguising?
Give up? The most impressionable! the ages: (negative) six months (‘Look honey! I bought the complete Grimms Fairy Tale on dvd, so after the baby arrives, you can just hit ‘Play‘) to 18 months (“…leave the dvd running with the volume real low… it will lull her to sleep, it’s been such a long time, sure! leave the door open, we’ll only be a room away) to 2 years ( “would you read to the baby? I so have to get back to the gym just take whatever you are reading and sit with her, put the dvd on and you can read your book and he will think you are reading to him…“) to 3 years (“…no dear, there is no such thing as a troll under the bridge, no matter what the big kids are saying“).

The victims are always the defenseless children. So, back to Jack and the Beanstalk. That is certainly an uplifting tale of triumph over adversity, beyond criticism or reproach, non?

(as always from Wikipedia*)

Jack is a young lad living with his widowed mother. Their only means of income is a cow. When this cow stops giving milk one morning, Jack is sent to the market to sell it. (“Carlos Castaneda wrote a series of books about learning about right living, in one of these books, he relates how a brujo offers a young man 2 gourds in exchange for help carrying them to market. The young man agrees and when the task is complete accepts his reward and takes the gourds and opens them. He sees only food and water, and, expecting gold or other tangible rewards smashes both gourds on the ground and walks away. Am I the only one to see the short-sightedness in Jack and his mom’s instant reaction to the change in the cow?”) On the way to the market he meets an old man who offers to give him “magic” beans in exchange for the cow. (Chase Bank is currently advertising a wonderful new feature of their credit cards…direct deposit of paychecks. That’s correct, you can have the ease and convenience of having your earnings be transferred from your employer to Chase, as the radio ad holds, ‘leaving you time for the important things in life’)

Jack takes the beans but when he arrives home without money, his mother becomes furious and throws the beans out the window and sends Jack to bed without supper. (“…what a bitch! you sure she isn’t really Jill and this is a way messed up couple and she has, like family issues and maybe a substance abuse thing going? rational response to a disappointment, Mom!”)

As Jack sleeps, the beans grow into a gigantic beanstalk ( lmao…not even going to go near this one… hey! Janine! …you got any Reader overview on this? ). Jack climbs the beanstalk and arrives in a land high up in the sky where he follows a road to a house, which is the home of a giant. He enters the house and asks the giant’s wife for food. She gives him food, but the giant returns and senses that a human is nearby:

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I’ll have his bones to grind my bread.

However, Jack is hidden by the giant’s wife and overhears the giant counting his money. Jack steals a bag of gold coins as he makes his escape down the beanstalk. ( As well he should! He was a guest in the couple’s house, given food and shelter…of course he would steal from his hosts)

Jack repeats his journey up the beanstalk two more times, (!!!) each time he is helped by the increasingly suspicious wife of the giant and narrowly escapes with one of the giant’s treasures. The second time, he steals a hen that lays golden eggs and the third time a magical harp that plays by itself. This time, he is almost caught by the giant who follows him down the beanstalk. Jack calls his mother for an axe and chops the beanstalk down, killing the giant. The end of the story has Jack and his mother living happily ever after with their new riches (Happily) (ever) (After) ( magic beans = 1 cow, giant beanstalk = hyperactive hormones, opportunity to steal = the hospitality of non-larcenous childless couple, live happily ever after =Priceless)

… forget the analysis, if there was a full-grown blue-fin tuna in my 3′ above ground pool and you handed me a fully loaded shotgun… it would be less obvious than the message of greed and avarice and violence and self-gratification at any and all costs than this child’s tale. I mean, really. lol luckily, we have the Wakefield Doctrine to make sense of it all!

Oh yeah… who’s who? Jack is a roger, his mom is a scott the giant is a roger and the giant’s wife is a clark

…now go to sleep, tomorrow is almost here

* one of the special group of writers who participate in the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

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

ttt…TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

November 7, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

We are surely in the time of year, here in coastal southern New England, when we separate the men-from-the-boys… the women-from-the-ladies…. er…the tender feet-from-the-Eagle-Scouts (eww worse)… wait, gimme a minute. (ok, you’ll hate this prozeugma ), It’s a time when the distinction between a clark with a secondary scottian aspect and a scott with a secondary rogerian aspect becomes graphically clear.

When it comes to writing a post of Ten Things of Thankful (TToT), the autumn season, imho, puts an inordinate strain on our capacity to feel gratitude. Never a overwhelmingly obvious personal quality, the cold temperatures and inhospitable conditions, combined with the sun setting at four o’clock, (and racing towards noon with every passing Fall afternoon); I’d say, among clarks-who-write-grat posts, the time of year is like juggling eight, pissed-off tarantulas.

1) Una. Who, while comfortable at virtually all temperatures, is not, however, a fan of rain. (ok, just a little non sequitur(ish) but it’s true. Having the extra-long coat is probably the reason. The photo at the top of the post illustrates the primary reason our dogs have been my role model. Sure, she knows that snow turns into water eventually, but….snow deep enough to create speeding-dog-wakes-and-plumes?! Eternity in an hour, yo.)

2) Phyllis. Way more tolerate of the lower ranges of temperatures than we are. She does not, however, share our enjoyment of the higher, now sadly left in the previous months, heat range.

3) the Wakefield Doctrine. Everyone knows that the Wakefield Doctrine is gender and culture neutral, we figure it’d be waste of a TToT theme to not mention that the Wakefield Doctrine takes no position on the seasons of the year, vis-à-vis any proclivity of the three predominant worldviews: clarks(Outsiders), scotts(Predators) and rogers(Herd Members) towards a certain time of year.

4) Six Sentence Story a place to read short-short-(really short) story(ettes) and a place to learn and practice one’s own abilities.

5) Serial stories: ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘

6) The library project, Part II Now that we have removed the stump. the next step is to level the 14×16 area where the structure will be place (once they’re delivered crushed rock to form the base.

7) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) The BoSR/SBoR is not simply license to ignore convention, run roughshod* over the practices and processes emloyed (and exhibited) by the participants. Beginning with the founderini, Lizzie it has been a virtual Philosopher’s Stone (for some of us).

8) the spirit and tenor of this collection of bloggers who view the process as a win-win, not matter what some of us come up with for content. This attitude is what make this the ‘hop what it is.

9) something something

10) Secret Rule 1.3 Because what kind of bloghop would this be if’n we didn’t have Secret Rules. We’ll tell you back up in Grat 7

* interesting, the term dates back to the 1800’s when the nails that held the iron shoe would be left long, projecting from the hoof. This resulted in better traction for the horse and more damage to the undesirable that the horse rider felt the need to ride over. Hence the historical designation ‘Age of Enlightenment’.

music

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

Reprint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 25, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

No! Wait! This isn’t what you think!! …we;;, guess it kinda is

Surely there is an appropriate reprint somewhere in the years of Doctrine posts that will exemplify the feeling of a rainy Monday, still-dark-at-6:45 morning.

I think I know of one, hold on…

Got it!

New Readers! This is from the first year of writing this blog. It’s interesting to note the core ideas are very much in evidence, i.e. while we are all born with the potential to experience the world as would the Outsider(clark), the Predator(scott) or the Herd Member(roger), and, at an early age, settle into one and only one predominant worldview. Further, we never lose the potential, the capacity, to see the world, (however briefly), as do ‘the other two’. That said, there is only one predominant worldview, we’re only one of the three.

There are no clark-roger/roger-scott/etc hybrids. The reason is simple: to grow and mature means to learn and practice ways, behavior styles and social strategies to interact with the world in which we find ourselfs and negotiate the path of our lives. The Wakefield Doctrine is, at its heart, about the relationship of the individual to the world around them and the people who make it up. How, for example, I relate myself to the world around me, corresponds to that of the Outsider. It is not simply that I have a list of characteristics of traits and tropisms that correspond to the profile of a clark. The world that I experience is that of the Outsider. I began to learn, (at some very early age), what worked best when confronting such a world and have been practicing, ever since. The world and I relate to each other as would an Outsider.

From December 3rd 2009:

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).

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 16, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. Each week we join other writers and bloggers of like-mind and describe our lives/worlds/reality/and-people-places-and-things that have elicited a reaction/response of gratitude. (Since the previous week’s TToT*)

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) The ‘new yard’ that is the product of all the tree work we had done. It’s hard to convey how much Una likes it. She plain enjoys sitting in the yard, relishing the responsibility for her newly manifested domain.

4) the Six Sentence Story a place to read (and practice the brief art of flash fiction).

5) the Wakefield Doctrine. Because, in the personal reality of a clark, (or a scott (or) a roger with a sufficiently pronounced, (aka annoying), secondary clarklike aspect), it helps to have a framework. Or, a better way to put it: picture an old calligraphic map, torn-linen edges, almost too-age blurry and significant-looking, with little, tiny, map legends and keys reading, ‘Relatively Safe Here‘, ‘Don’t Dawdle‘ and ‘Remember not to answer anyone who asks, what right to you have to pass through here‘.

6) serial story writing… it’s kinda like daydreaming in public. Go read, (and then subscribe for upcoming chapters), our two semi-interconnected serials, ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘ and ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ My weak, bordering-on-appendix-level-relevance, tertiary rogerian aspect** wants me to type: And then tell us what you like about these stories…

But, I’m not going to.

7) ‘Oh, deep in our heart we do believe, We shall undermine someday.‘ (Apologies to fans of traditional gospel… we’ll add a music vid, by way of amends)

8) something, something

9) check back for update on the project

10) Secret Rule 1.3 Simply put: if you get anywhere in the vicinity of Grat Item(s) 7 and 8, the feeling that engenders totally qualifies for this, Number 10!

* and, fortunately for some of us, more rorschachian-inclined, post-writers, the shackles of Chronos are laying in the dusty road behind us, along with: a college degree with immediate economic utility, the offer of an apprenticeship in a practical trade and the un-requited love of countless real and imaginary figures in a to-remain-unpublished autobiography.

** anyone not here for the very first time: you have the tools, use ’em.

music video (Doesn’t happen that often, two songs with same title)

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

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 4, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

It might be smart, (and certainly narrativistic*), to open this post with: ‘the original goal of this blog was to expose as many people as possible to the fun and (the) benefits of the Wakefield Doctrine’. That would be accurate at a certain level, but would be leaving out an awful lot about the experience of writing these posts**.

The reason for starting this blog is lost in the silent, disorienting applause of hitting ‘Publish’ on the first post.

(Certain friends might mark the start of the magic that has brought us to this, the 2378th(ish) Wakefield Doctrine post as ‘the conscious decision to begin typing’.)

Be that as it may, while the Wakefield Doctrine has not, as of yet, become a household name, there are new Readers who encounter us and, perhaps not writing in and asking ‘Hey! I saw some photos on this page. Where does a Reader have to go to get a hat for our own damn heads?’ Stick around for a while. As the old blogger once said, ‘As long as there are new Readers, a blog will never disappear’.

Enough with the metaphysics!

The thing of it is, the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine will provide a person with one more perspective on the world around them and the people who make it up. If you nod and think, ‘ok, can’t be any harm in that and maybe this one will be the one’, we’ll say, ‘Welcome clark‘.

lol

A little insider info for the New Reader: doesn’t matter what you or anyone else thinks, if you can see the clarks, scotts and rogers in your world today we can promise two things: a) you’re a clark or you’re a scott or roger with a significant secondary clarklike aspect*** and 2) there’s a real good chance you won’t be able to not see the clarks, scotts and rogers in your world now. But stick around and we promise you won’t stay angry.

Quick bullet point of the three ‘personality types’ of the Wakefield Doctrine:

clarks(the Outsider) if you wake up thinking about the world ‘out there’ awaiting you, you’re probably a clark. You don’t mind being different from everyone you know, as long as it doesn’t become a topic of someone else’s conversation. You know you’re weird, but have friends that don’t seem to mind. And, besides, today might be the day you find that missing piece of knowledge that will tell you how to be a real person.
scotts(the Predator) you don’t wake up the way other people you know… they seem to take their time and wait to see what happens to them next. You don’t think you’re different from ‘most everyone you know, in fact, it kinda makes the day more exciting, if you think about it. Which you don’t. Life is short, but doesn’t seem to be letting up, so you going to live the hell out the today.
rogers(the Herd Member) you get up at the best time, the world around you like a warm quilt, (with the occasional jerk pulling the covers off your legs or pushing the pillow too high). You know the Right Way and, while you worry sometimes, (quite privately), that you might not be up to the task of setting an example to your friends and co-people, you laugh at the notion that you will fail to show others, by example or reference, how to properly live.

ok, time to get back to our respective predominant worldviews. (Thats the term we use to designate the ‘personality type’. We use it because the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated with how a person relates themelves to the world around them (worldviews) and not because of some set of geno-inspired likes, dislikes and tropae**.)

* not a ‘real’ word

** interestingly, when first encountering the concept of blogging, and the blogosphere itself, my response was, “Yeah, so everyone will read about what I had for breakfast or my thoughts on the weather.”

I had another song in mind, but the one today showed up instead. The thing he does with (the character, if nothing else) of individual notes is simply amazing. yeah, a clark.