the Wakefield Doctrine

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

You want some simple, un-impeachable evidence to support the assertion that I have a secondary scottian aspect? Allow me to say,

“You are living in a perfect world.”

“Everyone works as hard to get things in life as everyone else.”

It’s true! Unfortunately, the scope of the discussion required to support my provocative assertions is just a wee bit beyond a Tuesday morning post.*

The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective. An additional perspective. And, as such, can only add to our capacity to understand the world around us and the people that make it up. (And, no, you don’t want to put the emphasis on ‘make it up’. Were you to do so, we would be all, “well, since you brought it up.” lol)

The second-greatest obstacle to employing the Wakefield Doctrine is accepting the idea that when we speak of ‘the reality of the Outsider’ or ‘the world of the Predator’ or the even, ‘the life of the Herd Member’, we are not merely referring to a category of observed behavior. I grew up in the reality of the Outsider. The ‘conditions and character’ of the reality I found myself in was that of an Outsider. I did not choose or decide or otherwise pick a world in which I was apart from; for reasons not understood, I found myself there and, as most organisms do, I adapted and learned and developed strategies for interacting with the world (and especially) the people in it. As best I could.

Didn’t think I’d find the hook to bring in the subtitle, but there it is! Three personal realities. Three styles of interacting and living in the world we find ourselves.

The hardest thing in the world:

• for a clark (Outsider) is to live in the emotional matrix of a roger (Herd Member)
• for a scott (Predator) is to remain sane in the reality of a clark (Outsider) where everything is variable and changeable from one day (or minute) to the next
• for a roger (Herd Member) is to be happy in the life of the scott (Predator), roaming the world, hunting to live and living to hunt, associated with others in a pack on a basis of mutual convenience, not mutual validation.

* Hint: it’s grounded in one of the fundamental concepts under-pinning our theory of personalty, i.e. the notion that all reality is personal. On a personal level, of course. But before you laugh, consider: what is more personal than the world as you experience it? Right?

I’m standing with a friend, looking across Bleecker Street (in Manhattan) (see photo above), at the glass front of the Cafe Angelique. You call me up and say, “Put your friend on the phone.” I remain standing next to my friend and try to ignore the masses of people flowing past us in either direction. On occasion, like a rogue wave careening down a mountain stream, a group of people slow almost to a stop, then breaks apart, some passing to my front, others to the back.

“He wants to talk to you,” my companion says, by way of explaining the cell phone, suddenly two inches from my nose. Across the street, like a vertical Syclla and Charybdis, the crosswalk light shouts, Stay! Walk! Stay!

“From what your friend says, you’re about to have a really great lunch. Tell me what you see.” The voice from the phone is calming to my ear and reassuring to my head.

I describe the plate glass window, barely containing the diners within, like the famous small-car/multiple-circus clown stunt, only in a convertible. I mention the maroon awning with the establishment’s name in white lettering and end with the vacant white bench.

“Is there any one sitting there?”

I reply, “In the restaurant?” My phone turns into inanimate plastic and metal, it’s smooth surface mocks me.

“Of course not! Cafe Angelique is one of the Top Ten places for lunch, according to the Times. The bench. Are there people sitting on the bench?” There was an up-lilt to the voice on the phone reminiscent of a child asking about Santa Claus as the family heads to the mall for Christmas shopping.

“No. Its em… wait a minute, a couple is standing in front of it. Looking in through the window. They’re waving at someone inside. Ok, there is someone sitting on the bench.”

“Thats where you’ll be having lunch today. It sounds as good as everyone says. Bon Apetit.”

I can’t wait to leave. My lunch companion has to be dragged out of the place, totally at home the minute we stepped through the doors, (somehow, after a brief conversation with the maître d′, we were waved into the cafe. The attractive couple remained on the bench. Smiling).

That, for the Wakefield Doctrine, is what personal reality is about. Nothing magic or mystifying, simply that the world, reality, our jobs and the people we interact with in our daily lives are…. subject to interpretation.

So, the perfect world? Well, that kinda involves a little more imagination. Suffice to say, our experience (of the world) are influenced by our history, our selfs and so, tend to reflect our hopes, expectations, fears, ambitions and secret dreams buried under childhood years. Now, we didn’t say ‘An enjoyable world’ or, even, ‘A good world’. We said ‘A perfect world’.