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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 13, 2018 By

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

It is common knowledge among those who visit this blog more than twice* that I started it in order to expose the maximum number of people to the benefits of the Wakefield Doctrine.

As the years pass, I’ve pursued one ambition, to write the perfect Wakefield Doctrine post. It, (this perfect Wakefield Doctrine post), would be such that a Reader would, reading it but once, look around his or her world, (and the people who make it up), and apply the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine to their benefit.

So let’s try one this morning.

The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on life, the world and the people who surround us, as we navigate the course from our helpless births to our powerless deaths. The Wakefield Doctrine is a tool. A tool to aid the understanding of the afore-mentioned world, people and life, as well as a better understanding ourselves.  (Tools are funny things. Our world is crowded with those offering to sell us tools. Before signing up for the 3 Easy Payment Plan, we would be well-served to remember our experiences as young children when encountering tools. I, for one, still believe that a hammer can work on a screw; if the need is strong enough or the patience limited. lol)

The Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that we are, all of us, born with the potential to experience life in one of three characteristic realities. The world of the Outsider(clarks), that of the Predator(scotts) and the life of the Herd Member(rogers). At a very early age, we settle into one of these three. We grow and mature, learning and developing strategies for interacting with the world.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that, even though we all settle into one (and only one) of these three worldviews, (Outsider, Predator, Herd Member), we retain the potential of ‘the other two’. This explains why sometimes, a person new to the Doctrine might say, ‘Hey! I know I’m a clark but there are times when I surely am a scott.’ At times of sufficient duress, we sometimes access the strategies and styles of ‘the other two’ in order to deal with the situation. (This, btw, is a total hint at the power of the Doctrine as a tool for self-improvement.)

The Wakefield Doctrine, at its heart, is all about ‘How we relate ourselves to the world around us‘. The wording is critical and quite deliberate. We are all used to the idea of ‘relating to the world’, our efforts to respond to the demands of daily life. We did not say that. What we said was, ‘How we relate ourselves to the world around us.’ The emphasis on the self is not as egocentric and self-absorbent** as it may sound. It is, rather, a call to know yourself.

So that’s the philosophical part. Now the fun part! How do you recognize the three personality types?  wellll! Before I go into a ‘three part description, lets go simple(st): clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.

Of course, as we said, this is not about answering self-describing questions in the back of a magazine or on the facebook. This is about the identifying the reality that surrounds you or the person you are trying to understand.

  • clarks (Outsiders): self-effacing, shy, diffident and hopelessly rebellious. clarks live in the world of thought and ideas, knowledge and information, they are congenitally curious, and are heir to a wealth of facts of varying degrees of practical value. clarks will be found on the edges of the group, have a tendency to mutter and exhibit fairly poor posture, they are passive by choice (the saying is: ‘clarks abhor being the center of attention but will not tolerate being ignored’) Hopelessly creative, imaginatively self-destructive they make great friends and disappointing students/employees
  • scotts (Predators): aggressive, mercurial, confident and always on the move. The saying ‘Carpe diem’ applies to scotts both literally and figuratively.. they are the easiest of the three personality types to pick out… they are the ones at the center of a group (at least after they’re established their ranking among any other scotts in the area) and people like them, scotts are natural leaders because they are certain and have confidence, they don’t always have the best plan but they are the first in most situations to say ‘Follow Me!’ and most people do… off the cliff or into the New Frontier… doesn’t matter to the scott, all that matters is that they are acting and living life…now!
  • rogers (Herd Members): sociable, knowledgeable and always at home. those who grow up and develop their personality in the reality of the Herd Members have the advantage of certainty, they know they belong. rogers know that the world is a quantifiable place and that there is a Right Way (-to do things, to operate machinery, build a deck, cure a disease, raise a family) and their pride in being aware of this forms their attractiveness and lays the groundwork for their downfalls and setbacks. They are easy to talk to, socially confident and account for the present state of the ‘hard sciences’ especially engineering. Which is re-assuring as you travel thirty-five thousand feet above the ground. (scottian engineers are easily distracted and might be in the break room with the newest intern when it was time to re-check the calculations for the airframe of the newest jet and clarklike engineers….well, there’s that thing about 2 + 2*** so maybe it’s good that, with their dislike for mathematics, the percentage of aeronautical engineers who are clarks is fairly small.)

There you have it.

 

* once is accidental, twice is ‘did that site really claim to know more about me than I know about myself?!’ but three times is the charm, the curse and an indication of either: a) predominant clarklike worldview or 2) a significant secondary clarklike aspect. in either of these cases, we say, ‘welcome’

** one of my favorite ‘rogerian expressions’. Beyond the scope of a post. Go look it up.

*** ask a scott, “How much is 2 + 2? And, after making a joke, they’ll laugh and say ‘I’ll tell ya later’. ask a roger the same question and they will say, “4” (No comment, question or even emotion. It’s just a fact of life.) Pose this question to a clark, “How much is 2 + 2?” and their likely response will be something like “In what context?”

 

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TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- “…and then there were seven.”

August 4, 2018 By

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

“J’accuse…!”
Farmer Oppenheimer was heard to say, shoulders slumped as he looked out over the once burgeoning spiral of life-giving corn. Resigned to the inevitable, it was the same tone of voice with which he argued to get off the path that he’d been set upon by the dogs of war
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This week is over. And thank goodness for that! I’m certain that, weird as I might be, I’m not the only one who noticed that someone was playing tricks with time this week past. And not the run-of-the-mill, ‘what time did you say it was? no way! that was the fastest morning ever!’. No, nothing so…common. It was more, (to self): ‘Why is my calendar so empty today..oh, it’s not Monday, its Wednesday.’ or even, “No, we have to get this done for the weekend, so lets start right now. … three days? what are you talking about three days left, it’s Thursday afternoon!…right?”

(Helpful Tips for Newer TToT participants: Say you’re writing your list and things are going smoothly, as you recount a period of time, (could be the week that has just passed, or maybe the semester in college when it finally registered that you were living on your own), anything. Then seemingly out of nowhere you run up against a thing, event, occurrence or an interaction with that-really-annoying-middle-manager* that has you thinking, ‘Nah, no way I’m grateful for that!’ There are two frequently observed approaches to dealing with the negative and/or awful things that happen to all of us: a) find the positive in it (good) or 2) refer to it as a ‘Item of Hypogratitude’ and pull that Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) down from the shelf.(maybe not as good, but more fun)

Of course, the bottom line here at the TToT, is that there is no requirement for what makes a ‘good’ TToT post. (I might argue, ‘well, ‘good intent’ surely is a requisite.) But as our host, Kristi would surely say, ‘Joining-in is, in and of itself, both a reward and a gift (to the others).’

Hey, this has been a fun intro. I’m glad I took this route…. because, cha-ching! three Grat Items!

Lets get this party started. Grat Items for me this week:

1) Una

“Come back here again and I’ll moidalize ya!**”

(Landscape orientation)
The corn spiral forces the mottled-green (one would be forgiven for insisting its a ‘motley green’) lawn to serve as the natural backdrop it is so suited to being. The top border of the photo shows the dark pine woods behind, with the pale wood rail fence just before and below. This is a statement both of function and potential for the woods and the fence.
In the lower center of the photo, Una sits on her haunches, leaning forward at the shoulders, staring intently at something we viewers are not privileged to see.
The center of the photo is taken up by the corn spiral. Looking more like the day after the first day of the Battle of the Marne, there are as many stalks lying on the grass as there are upright and reaching for the heavens. (Not that I’m inclined to leaps of fancy, but am I the only one to feel the slight trill of sympathy (with an edge of irony) for the corn? It puts its everything into growing from the earth, reaching for un-attainable sky little realizing that success is rewarded with obliteration?)
But I digress…half of the corn plants are lying on the grass, like bent and broken drinking straws. The squirrel demon who would rule the garden un-opposed, were it not for a certain dog.

 

2) Phyllis

3) Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

4) ‘Intro grat’ A (I’d footnote or otherwise hyperlink this up to the intro above, but then you’d never get to finish reading the post, ya know?)

5) Just a thought: I enjoyed captioning the photos but it occurred to me that I might not have provided sufficient backstory for proper enjoyment (or allowing for a reader being a relatively normal person finding themselves falling, small glass bottle in hand, labelled: ‘Read Me’.) The cause of the dying spiral corn is that darn squirrel! I was going to cite the intro again, but, you know how I mentioned that ‘there were no rules other than ‘good intent’? Well, as much as I will maintain that as a worthy attitude goal, I have certain reservations. (Most of which are grounded in my early socialization experiences, the ones that commenced when I moved into my dorm in college.) Ah ha! There! My music video for the week.

6) Current weather! Hot and humid. Love it. (For me the answer to the timeless Summer question is always, “Why no, no it is not.”)

7) the Writers Club. Only a few weeks in existence and its value has been established. (It saved me from a boring afternoon) You want to have some fun? Go to this post, at the Club and join in. If you’re not a member and would like to participate, comment here or there and I’ll totally open the door to the clubhouse. ( Or ask one of the members, Valerie or Denise, Mimi or Pat Brockett or Kerry

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE  (There may be a reader out there thinking they would like to join in, however the mere thought of committing to Ten Items (more or less) is a fun-leaching concern. Not to worry. Send (as a comment) your Grat Item (with whatever form of attribution you’d like) and I will post it here!  (no, think nothing of it… you’re the one taking the chance…. I mean, have you read this post?!?!  lol)

9) Sunday Supplement

Phyllis, Una and the Doctrine.
Pretty much covers it all, non?

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (in part: “[t]he fact of (the) completion of a List of Ten Things of Thankful constitutes, in and of itself, an Item of Gratitude (citation: ‘Thank God! I’m done and it’s still Saturday!’ Rule BoSR/SBoR c. 2009-2018 Manchester UK, Wakefield RI

 

 

* the person in the organization with more power to make life un-necessarily difficult that anyone can explain, the one you want to grab by the shoulders and shout, “No! No one here calls that ‘the Bible’… No one. They call it the SOP, if they call it anything. Not even you call it ‘the Bible’ except when you have someone in front of you who doesn’t know any better or is too mature to shout and walk out!”

** Curly, on innumerable occasions.

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TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

July 28, 2018 By

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

‘the nail in the coffin being carried by millennials: a modern ‘wallet’
yeah, right that’s a hundred dollar bill (well, three-quarters of one)…
“cash? what is this ‘cash’ you speak of? are you hiding food in the woods?“

 

This is our…. hey, it’s the last Saturday in July (aka… time to step up on the slingshot-to-October) lets not shave, wear socks or bother with capital letters. (there are those who say that my people, clarks, don’t have a wild side. ha!)

this is the Ten Things of Thankful. created once upon by Lizzi (of the House of Lewis) as her own clark-like bootstraps (through which she succeeded in changing her frame-of-reference). hosted by Kristi, it is a place to register your gratitude. writing style and format are… shall we agree on ‘tolerantly casual’? Ten is the number cited in the title, but, of course, there is a certain Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules) that allows for all sorts of tomfoolery*, provided it is of good intent.

1) Una

“Sheep’s in the meadow and the…”

2) Phyllis

3) the Writers Club Now this is a recent development. A club. People who enjoy writing. (Only requirement for membership: the willingness to answer the following question: Do you think there’d be a difference between being a member of a group or… belonging to a really cool club? (lol… no, I’m serious. And it’s an essay question. Compare and contrast. You remember!)  Warning! The ‘clubhouse’ is a blog (at the link) when you get there you’ll see one Post. It is (as I refer to it in the most recent entry) the refrigerator wall for the club. at the moment. leave a comment, a question whatever. (The answer to the un-asked question: At this point some hardy souls, adventurous denizens of the world virtual. Val and Mimi, Denise and Kerry and Pat Brockett at present.)

4) hey Zoe!  you owe me an answer to the qualifying question (for a trial membership in the Writers Club) and DSM-5 citation…. tell Joules to let the bears down from the tree and send a photo

5) new correspondent** Lorraine. She stopped in last weekend with a fun TToT post.

6) Pat for her joining in on a Six-duet over at the Six Sentence Story

7) Driveway Corn

(There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow driveway
The corn is as high as a elephant’s eye rearview mirror
And it looks like it’s climbing clear up to the sky)

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE  (this is for any Readers, fans, followers, blog wanderers and tourists, if you feel like you’d like to participate but are hesitant… (“I’m sure all those people are published and professional writers, surely I’ll look silly. except for that Doctrine guy, what’s the deal with him? Don’t he realize that people might not get the ‘humor’?”) send in your ‘One Thing of Thankful’ and we’ll put here at Number 8. Serially!

9) Sunday Supplement  Phyllis and Una go for a non-9-mph-passenger-seat-with-the-window-a-safe-one-third-up-around-the-abandoned-golf-course-where-the-scents-and-smells-are-like-driving-through-the-Mall-of-America-at 33-mph-in-a-convertible-with-the-top-down ….walk.

“come on! lets go! first the car and then outside in the woods!”

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (go ahead, ask! the BoSR/SBoR is there to be used by men and women who toil over a smouldering*** keyboard.)

music vid?

* lets see you come up with a emoji for that

** that should be ‘participants’… but clearly I’m all caught up in the winds of time reaching gale force and can’t help myself.

*** for our Founderess, for all of being the our cultural taproot and home to the Bard, they still can’t lose the extra ‘U’s

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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “… of development, writers clubs and understanding the world around us.”

July 23, 2018 By

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

Do we outgrow the past or do we simply forget? Do the improvements, growth and developments we achieve (through effort, ambition and circumstance) become like, well, the way it is.

We admit to a fondness for the occasional peculiar word or phrases that, although uncommon in everyday conversation, are fun. Today (in light of the opening sentences) the fun word/phrase/expression is raison d‘être. (which our friends at wikipedia define as  “…a French expression commonly used in English, meaning “reason for being” or “reason to be”.”)

The Wakefield Doctrine is the reason for the existence of this blog. All, and only, because it hit me one night that it would be good to ‘formalize’ my personal system for explaining the world and the people in it.

The Wakefield Doctrine holds that we are, all of us, born with the potential to experience the world as one of three characteristic realities. At an early age we ‘pick’ one of these three ‘worldviews’ and we are on our way to becoming clarks, scotts or rogers. The Wakefield Doctrine, as a personality ‘theory’, is not concerned with how you would describe yourself, the results of questionnaires created to identify traits and interests or even what you think that girl is doing sitting out there in the middle of the field looking back towards the house filled with people she may or may not be related to (well, sometimes we enjoy the traditional approaches; I mean, damn! give yourself away in one description much, clark? lol). Unlike other tools developed by psychology, sociology and phrenology, tools easily transposed to popular media such as ‘the Face Book’ where they lie, attractively packaged, club-shaped mirrors waiting for someone to notice, “Oh, honey! Come here! I found this personality test in my magazine and it so has you down to a T! Lets take it together. You first.”

Central to the hypothesis of the Wakefield Doctrine is the notion that we all live in a reality that is, to a certain degree, personal. Nothing weird, mystical or magical. Simply that if you and I are standing in front of the entrance to, say, a very popular restaurant, our experience of that moment will not be identical. The Doctrine takes this and jumps up above the individual and says, ‘Suppose the world was one in which individuals are separated from each other in a way not easily discernible or, better still, imagine that the life we wake up into after each sleep is that of the Predator, simple and direct, eat or be eaten; or suppose everything in the world is knowable and, to a degree established in a way that allows for complete agreement among like-minded people, that the universe is, in fact, definable and quantifiable.’

This is key to understanding the Doctrine. Children (you, me and the girl behind the counter asking if that’ll be Regular or Premium) all grow and develop (their) personalities in order to successfully interact with the environment that surrounds them. Social, physical, the whole thing. And this is done in the context of the nature and character of the world, as they experience it. These strategies evolve and develop into the style we refer to as our ‘personality type’.

I grew up in the world of the Outsider (clark). I developed a way of relating to the people and the world around me that permits me to stay out of the limelight (can’t have people pointing at me and telling everyone that we don’t belong) while at the same time giving me the tools and the drive to search for whatever it was that I didn’t learn when I was too young to realize it i.e. how to be a real person.

A friend of mine grew up in the reality of the Predator (scott). She’s a lot of fun to be around, gets more done in a morning than most people do in a week. She is always on alert, never is not paying attention to whats going on around her and everyone likes her…except for the ones who are terrified of her. Temperament is often un-fairly pronounced with the accent entirely on the first syllable… we prefer the word: mercurial. You want something done right away, you ask her and step out-of-the-way.

If you want that thing done right… you find my friend who grew up in the life of the Herd Member (roger). He will know how to do it so that the joints line up, the glue doesn’t stick out at the ends and it stays the way it’s supposed to be… forever. He knows the simple fact of the life that there’s a Right Way.  No, nothing as an alternative, no second-runner-up. One way. Fortunately, my friend has so many other people around him that grew up knowing that they all belong. Sure there’s minor disagreements over decor, but it’s all one big hap…. Herd. The world is good. Just have to understand.

OK enough for a Monday morning.

Gotta go work on the Writers Club. Stuff to do…

 

 

 

 

 

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TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- “… of weeds and flowers, technology and dreams.”

July 21, 2018 By

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

Three clarks.

This is the virtual place that Lizzi created. Having created it, (and nurturing it into a bloghop for all sorts of people of good intent), she passed the reins, (or tiara (or scepter)) to Josie.

Kristi now maintains the home fires. Each week she prepares the place for those who would contribute their experiences with the world that has engendered a feeling of gratitude. And, since we’ve been with the TToT from the beginning time, the Wakefield Doctrine gets to participate too! )

These are the things I am grateful for this week.

1) Una

A dog guarding the spiral corn.

 

2) Phyllis

Phyllis, work, treehouse. The essentials.

 

3) weeds

Thistle just before flowering. Still dangerous.

Green stuff and weeds, flourishing.

 

4) flowers

Rose supplanted by a dog.

 

5) oh, man! no way I’ll succeed in relating the feeling I had this morning when a favorite science fiction book stepped (almost) into reality. I was on google street view… wait, the book first. That way, if you want to have the same experience I did, you can read the book first and duplicate the steps that lead to my own…  (cool word…come on, clark! find a cool word)…. frisson. (Sure, I’ll go with that.) …moment of frisson.
Where was I? The book!  Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny (1979).
Spoiler Alert! (in case you want to attempt the aforementioned ‘replicate clark’s moment of frisson’.) The ‘hook’ in the story echoed for me today in a way that was… well, here I am writing a TToT Item of Gratitude because of it. Very cool. (yeah, no way that made any sense. but rather than waste time and electrons, if you’re still curious, ask me in a comment to explain what the hell Item 5 was supposed to mean. Ed.)

6) Speaking of Writing and such, ‘the Writers Club‘ is..coming along fine, thank you for asking. Actually it is. I’m grateful for the responses of the people I’ve been talking to about it.
Speaking of pirates, has anyone posed the ‘qualifying membership question’ to zoe yet? What?! OK, I got this.   Zoe: In the world of people, associates, rogers and clarks, there are Groups and there are clubs. Is there a difference? (A simple yes or no will suffice. DSM-5 citations optional but will count towards score. You may pick up your No. 2 pencils and begin….now.)

7) Friend of the Doctrine Cynthia as she follows the most remarkable of paths. In part remarkable because of her dedication and determination and plain, old hard work in discerning where the path might be found. As students of the Doctrine will attest to, the most difficult part of self-improving oneself is not in ‘the effort to do what is necessary’. Rather, the difficulty is in allowing oneself to see what really needs to be changed. And, then the path appears. If you’re looking for it. Cynthia is way good at that shit.

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE. (Presented as a public service). This space on the Doctrine’s List is reserved and available to any Reader who might be toying with the notion of participating in what clearly is a muy coolito bloghop. However, speaking for my people, sometimes we know something might be fun but the risk of doing things wrong (and thereby inviting excessive scrutiny) totally outweighs the benefit …so we sit it out. Here is the place you can try it out. Send in your Grat Item as a comment and I’ll place it right here. With full attribution as you would have it. Come on! You know you want to.

9)Sunday Supplement

Talk about your ‘set up’ photos! Here’s a photo from a ride to the pet store today.

Una is my co-pilot.
Yeah, I know! I’ve got about six semi-amusing captions for this here photo here.

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (from the Book of Secret Rules, aka the Secret Book of Rules) which states, in part: “[t]he act and fact of completing a list (of Ten Things) comprises, constitutes, manifests and, ‘my-god-I-did-it’ for inclusion as an Item on (said) List. Convention holds that it (the Item alluding to the completion, et. al.) is placed in the last position. Unless, there are more and then (that) realization may create an infinitely recurring loop of gratitude. Watch it.”)

 

 

Music video this week: good song, decent singing, incredible guitar playing.

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