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The Original Thanksgiving post from… -the Wakefield Doctrine-

November 27, 2019 By

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

As a nod to our (weak) rogerian tertiary aspect* today we are re-printing original the Wakefield Doctrine Thanksgiving post. Published on November 24, 2010 we present it in it’s entirety, un-cut, un-abridged** and uncensored, complete with original music and, as an added bonus, notes and commentary from reprints in the intervening years.

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

As everyone knows we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Oceania. Once a single-day holiday, calendar-creep now has it starting on Wednesday and ending Sunday night (…”man, did you see the traffic on the interstate”?). We will make every effort to keep the Posts coming, even through such a distracting time of year. (This Post is as mixed and confused as the Holiday itself).
Second only to Christmas in it’s demands upon the members (of our) culture, Thanksgiving is shedding it’s historical camouflage and coming into it’s own in terms of proscribed ritual behavior. Of course, Thanksgiving has always laid claim to being a standalone, not-a-hand-me-down, genuine American holiday, unlike those twin imported festivals, Christmas and Easter. As children we are not only taught the story of ‘The First Thanksgiving’, we even had school-directed Thanksgiving lessons.1  As a result, it is a holiday in which it is relatively simple to know how to act properly and  as such, is clark-friendly.2 I probably should resurrect/re-post something from the Doctrine archives that deal with the holidays, but hey! it’s Thanksgiving Week!! And we all know what that means!

…it means stress raised to levels otherwise experienced only on Wedding Days, (the day before) major Surgery, asking a girl out for the first time and/or giving birth; all delivered to every single member of your family unit in equal doses:

  • the cook-person (usually the female, but not always) “hey get out of the kitchen, you’re in the way”! / “hey where did everyone go, why do I have to be stuck in the kitchen”?
  • the children “why can’t we go outside, we hardly know those people”! / “I will try to get home at least for dinner, but I have a term paper that has to get laid”
  • the relatives (old) “why I remember when you were just this tall”! / “don’t you remember when we all went to the shore, you were this tall”
  • the relatives (young) “why can’t we stay home and have dinner” / “there’s nothing on TV, they don’t have any video games at grandma’s house”!
  • the invited friends “hey, you know what would be really exciting“? / “hey, your family are really nice people”!
  • the turkey/the carving/the presenting of the food, “it’s over-cooked I just know I over-cooked it”! / “no, it’s just fine! It’s just that the knife is still too dull”!
  • the desserts “hey, more than one desert at a single meal”! / “what the hell is a ‘Mince’ and why is it in a pie”?

We all know that “the holidays” are experienced differently by each of the three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and therefore the demands of the celebrations are very effective illustration of the nature of each. But if there was no Thanksgiving, a roger would have invented it! (Actually, they probably did). Think about it! A holiday celebration that is:

  • based on a factual historical event (sort of)
  • the protagonists (of the story) are religious refugees, persecuted and driven away together on boats
  • food, specific food and a not-to-be-deviated-from Menu
  • ritual menu and a full schedule of events
  • shopping in herds, as the climax of the celebration (Black Friday)
  • a moral taught to the young: we came here, those strangers who helped us were different, (…we had a feast and wiped out their culture)

I will be so bold as to suggest that there is no more rogerian a holiday than Thanksgiving!  If there was a St Roger, his feast day would so be in the last week of November.  (Saint Roger; Holy Mother Church’s only self-martyred Martyr. He died at the hands of the original Pilgrims and the Wampanoags;  records in Vatican archives tell us that St Roger’s suggestions throughout the day were accepted with good nature by all in attendance, i.e. “..don’t you think the deer is a little over-cooked”…”pumpkin pie? who would make a pie out of those things?”…”why is that construction-paper Indian’s head all folded”… But, as the story has it, the assembled party reached their limits when he was heard to say, “what do you mean, ‘no turkey’? the best part of the holiday is a cold turkey and pemmican sandwich at around 9:00pm’. His martyrdom is the subject of an up-coming Ken Burns documentary, “St. Roger…when enough is not nearly enough“)

And since we are on the subject of rogers and holidays, is there any human activity that is more one sided, over-hyped, expectations-sure-to-fall short, ( not counting sex on the eve of a relationship breaking up),  than parades? I don’t care if you are a trombone player in the middle of the herd or someone sitting in their living room watching it on TV…you are a roger. (…Someone tell me I’m lying.)

In any event, my own memories of (childhood)  Thanksgivings are all about the walnuts. (Among the several once-a-year foods) a bowl of nuts was put in the living room for the guests but the cool thing was that the nutcracker and those pointy-picking-something-out devices were included. I did not, and still do not like walnuts, but the chance to use the implements was the high point of the day. (…well that little memory-leftover has nothing to do with any of the rest of this trainwreck of a Post, lol)

 

1) such as pageants and plays and a whole bunch of shit that we were forced to make out of construction paper (using those rounded scissors and that white-paste-stuff that you could never keep off your fingers) and then the fuckin head of the Indians you so carefully crafted would get folded over and the whole thing still had to go up on the border around the blackboard of the classroom.

2) you really should not need this explained to you…about clarks…and holidays.

*****

Commentary/Intros from previous T-Givings:

 

November 23, 2011:

‘J’accuse!* that turkey did not commit suicide!…the Wakefield Doctrine Holiday-style’

 

Thanksgiving Day1 is the holiday that, if we did not already know that there exists a personality type referred to as a roger,  someone else would have pointed it out to us.  Perhaps the task would have fallen to an Art Professor in a land grant college somewhere in the Midwest. We can imagine the epiphany …in the middle of the night (during his sabbatical devoted to the study of the works of Norman Rockwell)
” My god!  Norman’s work is not just a robust and healthy celebration of paedophilia! He has been trying to tell us to transform our culture!  …for all good Americans to come forth and show their appreciation of patriotism, consumerism and child-abuse!!”

We have, from time to time, been accused of indiscriminate use of hyperbole in these pages, however, just consider the astounding level of pervasiveness of the  ‘Holiday of Thanksgiving’.  It is not enough to close the Post Office system and all other government agencies2 , no it is not, this Holiday actually attempts to compel normal, rational, adult people to sit in front of the television and watch a Parade involving giant balloon representations of out-of-print newspaper cartoon characters! Who the hell watches the Macy’s Day Parade on purpose?!?  Throughout the entire morning of Thanksgiving, you simply cannot escape the pageantry and spectacle, broadcast live and has as the ’emcees’,  News Anchors from the major networks morning news shows!  ( “Thats right, Matt! That’s Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift on the Snoop Dog float… it says here that her eye makeup took 12 hours and 6 pounds of aluminum foil chips to create!!” ). Like a  Hieronymus Bosch painting done in ‘live-action’, the whole country is exposed to hours and hours of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… more than 3 hours of parade music and floats  (” … hey, Anne isn’t the next float from your hometown”?  “That’s right Al! it’s my old Alma mater, the East Clydesdale High School Marching Band playing a medley, ‘Straight outta Compton’, ‘Fuck tha Police’ and ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ ).

Why do we say Thanksgiving is the most rogerian of all holidays?  Simply because Thanksgiving is about the how, not the why.  As a holiday and a cultural event, this particular holiday tells it’s participants exactly what to do; what to eat and how to cook it! Taught from childhood, every member of our culture knows precisely how (and) where they are expected to spend the Holiday! Thanksgiving is about family and if there is anything that rogers fake better than anyone, it is the joyful appreciation and celebration of the family.

 

November 26, 2013:

 

”the votes are in! Reader’s favorite T-Cell Day Post’ the Wakefield Doctrine ‘telling you what for, for 4 years… now trademarked ‘© !’

Thought I would get us in the mood for the upcoming consumptials with a re-print of a previous Thanksgiving Post. I will keep this intro brief as the Wakefield Doctrine has a disturbing tendency to take over, even when I’m feeling like not writing a new Post! (If the truth be told, especially when I do not want to write a new Post). Seeing how we’re all kinds of semi-mainstream these days, it might be right for me to apologize to the Norman Rockwell fans out there….nah  sorry guys,  the dude was twisted. In any event, here’s a Post from the year 2011.  (the ‘c’?  oh that!  yeah, the trademark papers came through the other day…we all kinds ‘o rogerian now, what with the government backin our moves an such.  keep your hands off the Doctrine, bitches…we gots ourselfs some major referential authority.)

lol (no, I don’t really think that Mila was at the First Thanksgiving, but I would loves to find me a photo of Alice in, like post-apocalyptic, Pilgrim duds…. damn!)

 

 

* the Wakefield Doctrine is founded on the proposition that we are, all of us, born with the capacity to experience the world in one of three ways: as an Outsider(clark), a Predator(scott) or a Herd Member(rogers). At an early, early age we take on one of the three perspectives and develop our personalities in the context of this, what we call the predominant worldview. We never lose the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two’, however, in some they are in namesake only, in others these can have a significant and noticeable effect. They are referred to as secondary and tertiary aspects. Myself as an example: I’m a clark (predominant worldview) with a (strong) secondary scottian aspect and a (weak) rogerian tertiary.

** one of the really fun products of the Wakefield Doctrine was the isolating and identifying of a characteristic of the rogerian worldview called a rogerian expression. Here is the link that explains it. From above an example: the ‘unabridged edition?’ the rogerian expression would have it ‘the unabashed edition’

lol… yeah, I know!

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Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘of Cynthian-istic insights and re-printed words, Tuesday! (how much trouble can we possibly get in?)

October 29, 2019 By

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

Ever notice that I seem to be unable to do a reprint post as they are intended to be used, in a manner for maximum benefit?

Sure, a proper reprint is supposed to be minimally re-packaged and/or labeled, you know, “And now, an Encore performance of…” and then hit send. Done and done.

But nooo, every time I try to do a reprint (“Dude, you used to teach the principles and provide examples of the Wakefield Doctrine every….day! Whats up with that? Call Frank or text the word, “Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers”.)

Apparently we have, before I even get to the ‘cut ‘n paste’ portion of our post, two topics floating around in my head: 1) the comment (and implications of same) left by Friend of the Doctrine, Cynthia and B) the secret insight blanketed in the words, all sleep-wrinkled and night-soft, in the leading two sentences.

To our friend, first!

In a comment to Sunday’s TToT, Cynthia wrote:

…haha. Clarks and their written statements…

ha ha, (or, as FOTD Clairepeek might say, ‘ja ja‘) indeed! There is, imo, something in these five, (or six, counting the onomatopoeia), that hints at so much more. You know, like, “Hey, you got a minute.” from a work superior, or “About those test results.” from an educational (or worse) medical superior or “We need to talk.” from an emotional superior.

Who out there, putting themselves in the scene, hear the thought, ‘Uh oh”

Now Point B is even more elusive but simpler. Only thing required to get the inference is to be a clark or to trust your secondary aspect. The most correct* but not overly constructive answer is “Because of fear!”

There you have it. An intro without coherence. But there is a point and there is a useful insight. Because, in the final analysis, the Wakefield Doctrine does not provide answers, it offers an (additional) perspective on our worlds and the people who make it up.

(Our reprint)

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

There is a post (or two) somewhere in the archives that look at the ‘Days of the Week’ from the perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine and seek to identify the days that are ‘good days’ for people of each of the three personality types. Some are megaphone-obvious, like Saturday and scotts or Mondays and rogers or Tuesday and …everyone! But, especially clarks.

Why is that? Why does the sub-title use the slightly arrhythmic phrase ‘truly user-friendly’? Unfortunately the word ‘mild’, is nearly harmless, there’s absolutely nothing in what it implies that anyone could take issue with, “…and temperatures will be mild today.”  “Don’t worry, your child is exhibiting the normal signs of the flu which includes running a mild fever.” It does, at least on the surface, seem to be a complimentary assertion (of the character or quality of a person or a worldview).

So what’s wrong with ‘mild’? What would cause a blog writer to begin a post with an apologia?

I don’t know. Nothing I guess. Don’t give it a second thought. Sorry I brought it up.

(Interruption for a Wakefield Doctrine insight. You know how we have descriptions (metaphoric and otherwise) of the world as it is experienced by those of the three personality types?

  • scotts ranging across the savannah hungry and impatient, take a moment to play with young pack members or sleep in the shade with one eye half-open;
  • clarks standing in the shadows, moving carefully, watching and, like self-animated marionettes, encircle their arms, hugging empty space in practice embraces, seeing more detail in the actions and plans of the others, the shadow-light allowing a closer insight and
  • rogers moving through the day, across the world, in unison of spirit, competing with the other Members of the Herd, not for supremacy, rather for positioning and increased centrality to the others in their local part of life.

To further our insight into ‘the other two’ worldviews we strive to infer from the actions, reactions, distractions and attractions exhibited by the person we are trying to better understand. It would seem that I’m implying that there is something about the quality of ‘mildness’, as it exists in the reality of a clark, that they (the clarks) feel is nothing to be overly proud of. But I’m getting off track. Back to the post.)

So Tuesday is the Mildest Day of the Week. Sure. I get that. Monday is over, Friday is a lifetime away and Wednesday, (‘hump day’ to rogers, they love to have almost-clever labels in their world. Know someone who insists their car has a name? roger…. unless she’s a girl…and it’s her first car…. and even then, she won’t really mean it.  rogers will.  lol (Go ahead, put your ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about and besides…and this whole Doctrine things isn’t anything but…’ in a comment, please.)

Anyway.

I did want to get in one other concept that carries weight, especially in the worldview of clarks:  expectations and pre-expectations.

As we know from ‘the Everything Rule’, these two conditions exist for all three personality types. However, when considered in the context of clarks, they provide excellent illustrations of the unifying principle of the Doctrine, which is: ‘we use the perspectives of the Wakefield Doctrine to allow us to better understand how we relate ourselves to the world around us.’

That’s all we have time for this morning. Be sure to write in your un-answered questions!

 

* most correct!?! rogers and scotts don’t be appreciating the value of dividing absolutes into smaller and more malleable chunks.

finally the music

 

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Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘The Land of Nod, clarks and personal realities…’

October 8, 2019 By

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

“The LORD said to him, If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged seven times. So the LORD put a mark on Cain, so that no one would kill him at sight. Cain then left the LORD’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” (Genesis 4:15-16)

“But I’m a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall him – If he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell – or if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning, then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we’ve made here today.”

— Vito Corleone

Seeing how today is Tuesday1. Lets talk about predominant worldviews.

The Wakefield Doctrine is based on the notion that we, all of us, experience reality as a personal affair. Nothing too extreme, no fair claiming super powers in your reality, (that for some reason is not demonstrable to anyone else, at least for the moment), just the obvious: when you stand at the bus stop in the morning, no matter how true it is that the physical destination is the same for all the other kids, that yellow monstrosity is carrying you to a place that they will not quite experience2.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that all people are born with the potential to experience the world in one of three ways. We call these distinct realities, predominant worldviews3.  Now, here’s where the Doctrine steps away from the majority of ‘personality theories’. The traits, characteristic behavior and idiosyncrasies I exhibit are not due to childhood drama, trauma, left out on the porch, pampered by the family retainer or exalted by both parents. They (the style of my interaction with the world) are the best strategies I could come by as a child learning to negotiate my surroundings (both physical and social), given the character of the world that I was experiencing. This, poor posture, tendency to mumble, desire to avoid the spotlight is the style most suited to survival in the kind of world in which I grew up.

What kinds of worlds are we talking about? Glad you asked! We all find ourselfs, way young, in a world of one of three characters:

  1. the world of the Outsider. clarks: the person who is inclined not to be in the spotlight, works hard, avoids credit, too intelligent for their own good and wicked creative (in a wtf sort of way) best friends of a scott, persistent friend of a roger.
  2. the reality of the Predator. scotts: don’t let that word, ‘Predator’ distract you, instead think…. Tasmanian devil, but friendly (most of the time), fiercely loyal friend, high-cost enemy, they (both male and female) put the Capital ‘S’ in Sexy
  3. the life of the Herd Member. rogers: next time you’re flying at thirty-five thousand feet, thank the rogers in the world for their stubborn insistence that the world (at least for them, and, fortunately the machines they build) is quantifiable and reliable, rogers are the reason there is a Bible (as a bunch of words, not to be confused with whatever inspired it).

Thats all the time we have today.

…the Biblical reference? That is both the power of the Wakefield Doctrine and the fun of the process (when one embraces said theory of personality). The phrase stuck in my mind for a critical few seconds this morning. Now the Bible is like the biggest cardboard box of blogpost ideas in the universe. I mean, its got everything and…and! almost always there be clarks, scotts and rogers. Them what wrote the Book, they be all about using three inter-dependent/complimentary/reinforcing qualities.

So why am I suggesting that the Land of Nod is referencing clarks? Stay tuned!

 

1) In the realm of workdays, sometimes referred to as Tuesday the Meek; weekday favored by clarks

2)  with the exception of the other clarks who are hidden in the clumps of pre-adolescent social chaos, like rabbits in a field of tall grass, there if for no other reason than its the best place to hide.

3)  no, no special reason other than its kinda cool sounding, if not entirely Hoyle Approved use of language4

4) thanks to Q. Tarantino for that line. In fact the whole Divine Intervention scene at the end of Pulp Fiction is worth clicking on the blue linked words. (Warning! Occasional f-word but, surprisingly, no violence)

 

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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “Morning thoughts with Cynthia…”

October 7, 2019 By

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

As much as my primary focus in these pages has, of late, been writing stories, (both Six Sentence Stories and TToT stories, arguably both fiction*), Friend of the Doctrine, Cynthia, wrote a comment yesterday that is surely an opportunity to reflect on our little personality theory.

Ms. Calhoun, she writes,

It’s a good time of year for talking about the Stanley. Ooh, did you stay in it, or what it a day trip? I love haunted house shows, and ghost story shows this time of year. Now? It is a clark-thing? Not sure. That depends on whether you like fun scary shows, too. Or not.
It’s been a good journey, this modicum of not posting. Ah, I won’t have a post for tomorrow, I don’t think, but I will have a goodly amount of fodder for when I do post – soon. It’s just been nice to have a bit of a break. And you’ve seen that I’ve started a new lil project that I’m quite enjoying. You know me…I rest a bit and then start something new. Story of my life. I’m not sure what aspect of the three worldviews that compels me to come up with new projects for myself all the time, but here we are…any tao te ching for your tea time discussion today?

Let’s get to work!

(Quick Note for New Readers: three personal realities result in the development of three distinct ‘personality types’. Everyone has one, and only one predominant worldview (clark, scott or roger). However, we all retain the potential of ‘the other two’, sometimes to a level where that influence is quite apparent. There is a rule called, the Everything Rule, that states, ‘everyone does everything, at one time or another‘. What this means is there are no ‘only a scott would do that’, or ‘that is completely a rogerian job’. A clark, could be a cop. The thing of it is, ‘being a cop’ manifests differently in the personal reality of a clark than, for example, a scott (who, btw, are totally the best at being a cop in terms of the qualities useful in this occupation being so in sync with (the) qualities… celebrated in the world of the Predator (i.e. a Scott). You know, driving real fast while making a lot of noise, chasing fleeing people, shooting off guns… scotts is real good at that kinda stuff. If you want to know more, read the other parts of the blog or just ask. Back to Cynthia.)

Enjoy haunted houses? Of course, the Everything Rule suggests we consider first how an entertainment like ‘a haunted house’ manifests for the three… you know those shows on TV with titles like, ‘Real Haunted Houses of the Genuine Kind’ and ‘Sincerely Talented Hunters of scary and dramatic Haunted Houses’? (found on either the History Channel or the Science Channel because ….what the &*&$#, ya know?) the people in these shows are rogers. The people in the haunted house exhibits and displays, where someone or something jumps out at you to add to your enjoyment? scotts. The people who are drawn to a haunted house, especially those like the Stanley Hotel, well, here’s a hint: ‘You know, there is no proof that ghosts do not exist, you never know!’  lol

The topic offered by our friend that is most intriguing and will require me to return to this post later in the day. This is due to the fact that it, (the topic), being so appropriate to a discussion of the Wakefield Doctrine that my available time at this moment, (8:12 am), permits me only to pose/frame a question.

I’m not sure what aspect of the three worldviews that compels me to come up with new projects for myself all the time,

Of the three worldviews, we’re looking for the one in which the central feature is manifested by a drive to learn and a need for novelty… which of the three… hmmm

(Will be back in the afternoon. Jump in with your commentationing at any time)

*  in no way intended as anything but positive, as a clark, I not only view reality as fiction, but as a WIP in which, sometimes, the author nods off and I get a shot at the keyboard

3:08 pm

…got a minute. Being a Monday mid-afternoon, allow me to continue as we look at Cynthia’s questions and how the Wakefield Doctrine might afford you of one more view. (This is, after all, the core mission/ambition of the Wakefield Doctrine, to make available one more way to perceive reality.)

The new projects syndrome our friend refers to is surely one of the classic good news/bad news aspects of the world of the Outsider (clarks). The good news is that it is a manifestation of one of the creativity of clarks.** the bad news it’s a process in the service of an un-satisfiable need. We create in order to find. Unfortunately we are trying to find something that doesn’t quite exist, at least not in the form that we have in our minds.

 

** true creativity as found in the reality of clarks is to bring into existence things that did not exist otherwise. this, in distinction to the creativity of rogers and scotts** In rogers, creativity manifests as reassembly, re-configuration of things already in existence, This is evidenced by the tendency of rogerian artists enjoying more commercial success than clarklike artists. scotts? well their creativity pretty much springs from their ability to direct the attention of those around them…. “Hey! Look! Its something you’re never seen before!”

 

** who said, ‘That’s the Everything Rule again!’? Very good.

 

 

https://youtu.be/X5r1ub00btE

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Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ” Of time and energy, why there never seems to be enough of either in the day.”

June 25, 2019 By

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

 

Today we are out to gain a new perspective on the matter of ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’ problem that many of us experience.

But, wait. Before we wade into the rhetorical morass of theories of reality, life and how we relate ourselves to the world around us, what’cha say I (re)tell you the story of the beginning of the Wakefield Doctrine?

In the early 1980’s, Scott* worked at a music store in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He was the only full-time salesman and (also) ran the store’s repair department. In addition to musical instruments, the store provided repair services for a wide range of electronic equipment, including  tape recorders and other audio equipment.

One day I happened to stop by the store to visit. While there, a young man walked into the store, went directly to the ‘repair department’ where Scott and I were talking and without preamble placed a ‘duel cassette recorder’ on the counter. A duel cassette recorder was designed to allow one cassette to be copied directly to another, what today we would call, making a back up. The controls on this ‘dubbing recorder’ consisted of two sets of tape recorder controls: Volume, Treble and Bass. Where it differed from a single recorder was that it also had a Master Volume control. As the name implies it controlled the volume level, for both recording and playback. The tape recorder that the customer placed on the counter appeared to be new and showed no signs of damage or abuse. 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’s wrong”.

Scott looked at the device for a second, then, without a word, reached under the counter, brought out a roll of black electrical tape, and, tearing off a 2 inch piece, taped over the Master Volume control (after returning the dial to it’s highest setting). He then slid the device back over the counter and said, “There, it’s all right now.”

The guy asked to plug in the recorder. Taking a cassette from his pocket he put in the machine and ran it through it’s paces. Satisfied that his ‘broken tape recorder’ now worked like new, he thanked Scott and walked out of the store, a totally satisfied customer.

My reality shifted. For reasons not clear to this day, although I observed what scott saw as to the nature of the problem with the dual cassette recorder, I realized that the character of Scotts solution implied a reality, a ‘context’ that was clearly different from mine. At that moment I accepted that the personal reality that I experienced was not necessarily the one that of anyone else. That the manner in which Scott perceived the ‘problem’ was fundamentally different from the way I witnessed it.

From that moment, standing in a small music store in Pawtucket, I’ve been observing the behavior of others knowing that what they are experiencing is not necessarily that which I am, I try to understand, “What kind of reality does this person exist in?”

Lets return to today’s topic, the matter of ‘the curious shortage of time’. Think back to a day when you were eighteen or, even, twenty-three years old. Remember, if you can, the variety of activities you engaged in on that day. Maybe you were in school, perhaps you’d already started a family and were exploring the imagined world of adult life. I am willing to bet that the number of tasks were greater than the count from your average day last week.

Counter-intuitively or not, the older we get, the less variety in the demands on our time.

A better (and more instructive) way to say that is ‘The older we get, the demands on our time become fewer, in part because our perception of (our) capacity to meet the energy requirements of the tasks that would engage us.’ We feel we only have enough energy for what our current life demands. (No, ‘we were younger’ is not a valid response.) This is not simply physical energy we’re talking about. It is how, as we age we settle into routines. Routines for the average day, whatever they may be. And we practice these routines until we can do them in our sleep. We effectively commit all the energy we possess when we wake up in the morning to these routines.

…maybe, for those of us feeling like there isn’t enough time in the day, it isn’t excessive demands on our time, or even a lack of sufficient energy, rather it is an (unconscious) claim on all our energy for the routines that dominate our days.

 

 

* yes, the Scott in the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers

 

…’cause the Doctrine believes any attempt to think should have musical accompaniment.

 

 

 

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