relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine

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

June 25, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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.

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

June 1, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

Every week for the last six years, bloggers, blog-readers and real people have been coming to the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop to catch the latest in gratitacious reflection and lists of things what made people feel thankful. The format is simple, the intention laudable and the execution…well, lets say eclectic and let it go at that. (I kid. Everyone who sends in a TToT post are of a talent and skill that makes the reading easy and the pleasure inevitable.)

Riding herd on this the blog-that-Lizzi-created, is Kristi. She makes sure the lights are on and the rent’s been paid.

Speaking of Kristi, she’s been a whirlwind of activity and preparation for the Sixthaversary of the start of this here blog here.

1) Una

Dog riding shotgun.

2) Phyllis

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work the ground and care for it”*
Landscape Orientation
*Genesis 2:14-16**
**Bow Wow Edition

3) Wakefield Doctrine: sine qua non, y’all, sine qua non.

4) Una’s Garden (and driveway corn) Garden at the top… photo of the driveway below

Soon to be lined with elephants.*
I’ve planted the driveway corn on the left edge of the above driveway.
Time will tell.
(Portrait Orientation)
*Rogers and Hammerstein

5) Synopsiseses… ayye…fricken…yiiiee! So the path to (traditional) publication apparently includes writing a synopsis. Requested by both agents-to-be and publishers is what makes this exercise unavoidable. What makes it worthy of my ayyiiee is that although the dictionary defines synopsis as ‘…an outline, overview of a novel, screenplay….” most sources place its maximum length at two pages (double-spaced) (Can I get an ayyiiee?) They want to know the primary characters, the significant events, conflicts and resolution and… and, how the major character has changed. Thats all. I did say, ‘Two pages, double-spaced, didn’t I?’ Thats approximately 500 words… five hundred. I will find a way. All because I’ve been driven by a certain theory of personality. (Won’t mention any names, but it rhymes with ‘Wakefield Doctrine’) lol. I sure am glad I’ve been participating in the Six Sent…… hey! a grat item! Lets put this to good use, ….coming in at Number 6!

6) The Six Sentence Story. A bloghop based on writing a story from a weekly prompt word. It’s hook, (the ‘hop, not the word), being the story needs be Six Sentences in length. It’s hosted by Denise (who took over from zoe ) and I’ve been a participant for years. I suspect my taking liberty with the glue of semi-colons and invoking a certain J. Joyce with my Lego sentence construction, have resulted in developing the beginnings of confidence in the editing process; to take a 500 word story and turn it into a 300 word story, which, of course, as long as there are only six periods, becomes a Six Sentence Story. Where was I? Oh yeah, editing. So all I need to do is think of my synopsis as a huge-ass Six Sentence Story and reduce it down to those words that carry the essence of ‘Almira’ (Girl realized she doesn’t know who she is. Girl (and the Reader) hear the life-story of a sleeping woman. Girl (and woman) understand their life and place in it.) Like that… ‘cept I give away the ending in the synopsis. For the sake of those still reading, I won’t do that here.)

7) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE. Got yourself on the edge of the diving board. Pretty sure you want to dive into a TToT? Inertia starting to glue them feets to the floor? Try this: send us one of your Grats in a comment and I’ll post it right here.

8) Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) It is the philosopher’s stone for the temporarily (or chronically) blocked TToT post writer. Know you have plenty to write but every time you start, your mind and your inner critic start to wrestle like over-tired six-year-old boys at the end of someone else’s birthday party? Doesn’t matter why, its all about the struggle. There’s a Secret Rule for that! Lets say you are totally in a bad mood, but have participated in the ‘hop for months, everything you think of reads like a sarcastic Paul Lynde. Yes ma’am there is a Secret Rule for that. I’d cite the Chapter and Verse. but…. yep! another Secret Rule prevents that. (Hint: don’t give up, there’s a Secret Rule to get around that too!)

9) Sunday Supplement

10) Secret Rule 1.3 “..the approaching conclusion of a list of things of thankful is, in and of itself, something to be…. you got it!” [ibid. op.cit. etc.]

(some kind of music vid)

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

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “…of branded clothing, clarks and learning the language of other realities”

May 6, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

This weekend’s Wakefield Doctrine call-in* was especially fun. In attendance: Denise, Cynthia and none other than (the Progenitor) roger.

As you would imagine, the topics were varied and diverse. They included:

living at college in the 1970s and the 1990s (me and Cynthia respectively)
the Wakefield Doctrine¹
writing, in general and writing an idea for a time travel story
it, courtesy of a dream involving friend of the Doctrine, Molly, The ‘hook’ of being awoken by the ringing of my cell phone (the aforementioned Molly calling to see what happened to me from the ‘previous evening’) and discovering that I was in my college dorm room in 1973. I could get calls from ‘the future’ but I was still in 1973 and, as we all know, cell phone batteries don’t last forever. (ed.note. “I’m still waiting for my skills to catch up to the idea. The plot is, like, amazing. But, as we all know, and was, in fact part of our discussion this Saturday past, ‘Ideas are easy, execution is the hard part’.
the nature of the three predominant worldviews and the challenge of getting far enough into the reality of ‘the other two’ in order to better appreciate the differences
…this appreciation being the foundation of the ultimate utility of our little personality theory, which is to develop all three aspects within ourselfs
Doctrine branded clothing and such… the first thing we did, back in the before-time, was to have hats made (‘for your damn heads‘). This served two purposes: a) proudly display an affiliation with the greatest insight into personality and dealing with the world and the people who make it up and 2) to identify our predominate worldview (note in the photos, one of the three is stitched in red) then came tee shirts and the last item, (and personal favorite), a college sweatshirt.

Lets see some photation:

There are other examples, since this is a convenient, electronic blog, click on ‘THIS LINK’ and you can see examples of Doctrine clothing (and the people wearing it).

* on the homepage…. upper right, is a phone number and basic instructions

1. the Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on personality, reality and the people who make up our lives. As a perspective, the Wakefield Doctrine is simply a tool, not an Answer. That being said, as a tool, it is useful, effective and a whole lot of fun.

The basics: we are, all of us, born with the capacity to experience the world in one of three characteristic ways. As an Outsider (clarks), a Predator (scotts) or a Herd Member (rogers). At an early age we ‘settle’ into one of these three ‘predominant worldviews’. We find ourselfs in the world of the Outsider, Predator or Herd Members and proceed to develop our personalities. Here the Doctrine diverts from the model of your everyday personality theories. Rather than fit you into a category on the basis of observed behavior and thereby assigning you a personality type, the Doctrine be sayin: Observe the other person (or yourself) which of the three worldviews is most…. congruent with the style of interaction?’ Is the person (or are you) ‘…Staying on the fringes, doing things way different, but out of the immediate spotlight?‘ ‘Does it look like that person (hey! are you) ‘…looking for a good time… impatiently watching for something to run away or charge you?’ or, how about, ‘Are they everywhere and giving off a friendly vibe and yet, not overly welcoming?’

That is how we do Sunday Supplement Personality Tests (Sunday Supplement Personality Tests motto: “Honey/Homey! Come here, you’ve got to take this test. It has you down to a ‘T‘”)

Enough for today.

Gonna try to write more on this topic in the coming days.

(Yes, everyone has one and only one predominant worldview. We do not lose the capacity to experience the world as ‘the other two’ but thats for a post on self-improving ourselfs.)

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

April 28, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

‘Pond in mid-Spring’
(Landscape orientation)
Our pond as Una would see it from her vantage point in photo #1 below. The water is dark, it’s blueness on loan from a sunny sky, and even then, showing only as globs of light in a shadow-dark surface.
The pond extends from almost the upper left corner and runs down across to the lower righthand corner. (Picture the right side of the top half of an old-fashioned hourglass).
Standing along the dry land are the winter-bare trees. The thinner trunks are closest to the water, clearly the younger members of the woods have not lost the sense of fun and/or adventure.

This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop.

Founded by Lizzi Lewis (no relation to CS Lewis, at least none that we can actually prove), the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) is a once-a-week sharing of writings, musings, photos and all sorts of reflections upon, observations and expressions of the writer’s experience of people, places and things that cause, elicit and otherwise incite a state of being grateful.*

And…and! being a bloghop means that each post is a assorted variety (or would that better be, a ‘varied assortment’?) of views, comments, adventures and insights offered by a group of skilled bloggers …. and us here at the Wakefield Doctrine (…bar rump bump) (lol)

Organizing the multi-circumstial** gathering is our host, Kristi. Beside being an outstanding photographererer… Kristi has that all-too rare gift of keeping things organized without letting the air out of the carefree balloon. (Tougher than it looks, yo).

And so, our contribution to this week’s TToT

1) Una

2) Phyllis While spousal units are frequently seen in a TToT (the Wakefield Doctrine is surely no exception), there are times when the qualities (they) manifest becomes a challenge to describe in writing. This week I’ll simply say, ‘Phyllis shares my appreciation of the positive message in this week’s video.’

3) Gardening 2019 This shall serve as our ‘Before’

4) Beta Reading. I’ve reach the point in my writing of ‘Almira’ where its time to let people read the story in its entirety. Let me know in comments if you’d be interested in reading it and I’ll follow-up by email about the format that is best suited to your technology. No cost or requirement to respond after reading, though any feedback will be appreciated. It should be fun. Seeing how often I’ve done excerpts on these pages, a good number of people know who Almira Gulch and Hunk Dietrich and Edward Fenton are, not to mention Dorothy Gale. So let me know and I’ll wrestle the manuscript into a form that will make it easy to read.

5) Favorite old ‘oTs This from a series in one TToT from way, long ago (look at the condition of the hat on the dashboard)

6) Another vid from that TToT

7) Work and the things I get to do. (Mostly, in the words of Jules Winfield…)

8) Kerry. I’m not overly adept at following people in the social media. Truth be told, in the face of the multiple virtual venues like Instagram and Twitter and other places, I’m about as varied as Ward Cleaver’s selection of business suits. I do follow Kerry on ‘the Facebook’ and from what I gather, she’s off to another conference somewhere in Canada this weekend (which for me brings up visuals of: Winter Olympics, Sgt. Preston, Snidely Whiplash and that cool hotel in Quebec (or maybe it’s Toronto). I watch the things she does as a writer and advocate charging into the world and, I’m like, “Damn!’ How cool/daring/impressive is she?”
Stop by her site and check out her podcast, ‘Ketchup on Pancakes‘.

9) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE (Just in case you’re new to the TToT and, although you know you’ll enjoy participating, maybe you want to wait and watch a while. Send in a Grat Item and I’ll totally post it here. You know, like getting invited to sit in for a one song at the local club.

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (Reference the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

music vid

(now this is a song that offers a glint of light at the base of door that many people will walk past, eyes focused on the map they inherited from family and friends which does not indicate anything of interest. the story (that I choose to believe) is that it was written by Brian May about his dog. and following the thought expressed in the lyrics, rather than that in the chorus, results in something quite positive and uplifting. imo, of course

* …or not grateful, such is the broadness of the over-arching tent of this here ‘hop here, is there is a place for the broken shoelace, studied-like-all-night-get-a-‘C’, find out you have to work on the weekend and all the other things that happen in real life, here at the TToT. They are referred to hypo-grats and require a special level of attention on the part of the writer, the standards for inclusion (in a TToT) provided courtesy of the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

** not a ‘real’ word. chances are, though, if you’re still reading, you get the idea

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

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “… of Mondegreen(s), reality and clarks”

March 19, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

Live! From the waiting room of a dentist office. George Michael is singing an example of ‘the writer not realizing the true power of his own work*.

Which surely leads us to the wonderful word/concept ‘Mondegreen’

(…back in real time. A little more to tell you about)

This post is so for clarks (and scotts and rogers with significant secondary clarklike aspects).

It wasn’t ‘Careless Whisper’ that made me appreciate how interesting being a clark can sometimes be. It was Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’.

So I’m sitting there waiting for my hygienist (who is a clark) to call for me, so I did what any (of us would do) I looked things up. As it was, ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ played from the ceiling. Naturally I thought, ‘so who is Bruce?’ And went to wikipedia (the best thing about the internet, from a clark’s perspective) and looked it up. I cite:

A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Lynne shouts “Bruce!”. In the liner notes of the ELO compilation Flashback and elsewhere, Lynne has explained that he is singing a made-up word, “Grooss,” which some have suggested sounds like the Swiss/German expression “Gruß.” After the song’s release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as “Bruce” that Lynne actually began to sing the word as “Bruce” for fun at live shows”

OK I accept that.

Now this is where the fun we have (as clarks) begins…. mondegreen?! What might that be… all blue in linkage.

A mondegreen /ˈmɒndɪɡriːn/ is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to clearly hear a lyric, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.^[1]^[2] American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing about how as a girl she had misheard the lyric “…and laid him on the green” in a Scottish ballad as, “…and Lady Mondegreen”

of course!

I smiled (to myself). This is part of the better part of the world of the Outsider.

The fun and genuine pleasure in knowing the Wakefield Doctrine began when I heard my name called, ‘Clark?’

Given that we spend a few minutes twice a year together, naturally I had long since told my hygienist about the Wakefield Doctrine. And, equally naturally, by virtue of being a clark, she immediately ‘got it’.

So as I sat back in the chair this morning she said, “So whats new?”

I smiled the smile of one clark to another.

“So you know that ELO song… I forget the name, its the one where they say ‘Bruce’?”

She nodded “I know the one you mean.”

“Well I looked it up and there’s this thing called a mondegreen and it’s a term for the times we hear one word and substitute it with another thats different but makes sense in a weird way, ya know?”

She smiled and nodded in acknowledgement and appreciation for the concept.

“You realize, of course, the implications of this for how we deal with reality, right?”

She laughed out loud and proceeded to tell me what it was I was thinking.

Thats the fun of the Wakefield Doctrine.