relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘..of occupations, avocations and worldviews’

November 21, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

(Refresher: the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we, all of us, are born with the potential to experience reality, (and the world). in one of three characteristic manners: as does (an) Outsider (clarks) or a Predator (scotts) or the Herd Member (rogers). At a certain early age, (the Doctrine tells us), we settle into one of these three ‘worldviews’; we become clarks or scotts or rogers. We do not lose the potential to relate to the world as do ‘the other two’, they are available if we but find ways to access them.

The Wakefield Doctrine wears the label of ‘personality theory’, but it really isn’t. What it really is, is a perspective on the world, the people in our lives and our ownselfs. The Doctrine is a tool for adding to, enhancing our understanding (of the world and the people and ourselves), but has little interest in any whys or wherefores. The goal is to add to our understanding and appreciation of ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us‘. (Not, ‘how we relate to the world around us’, rather ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’. Big difference.)

And so, since it, (the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) is nothing more than an additional perspective, what good is it?*

The cool thing about self-improvement and the Wakefield Doctrine is that we don’t have to acquire anything that we don’t already possess. Thinking that you need to learn to be more demonstrative, more accessible on an emotional level? No problem, your rogerian aspect will totally help. Need to temper your temper, pre-empt your impulsiveness? You have a clarklike aspect. Feel like you want to task risks, leave behind the caution and conservativeness? Just check in with your scottian aspect.

So it’s all there, provided you can let it out. And that will be the topic of our next post.

* The extent to which a new idea is accepted and embraced by others is very much influenced by the claims made by the originator (of such ideas). It is not about providing the answer to the ‘what’, as it is about making the answer to the challenging question of ‘what’s in it for me?’ immediately clear. Even more so, it depends upon providing this information cloaked in the appearance of being widely accepted and incontrovertibly true and certain. (Which, for one of the three worldviews, is a totally redundant description). If this is a valid observation¹, my own predominant worldview is very much a factor. Not in a good way. Let me explain².

It will help to consider this: there are three jobs/occupations/avocations/hobbies/styles-of-effort-to-influence-those-around-us. (Yes, just three).

The three jobs are: scientist, salesman and machine operator.

The scientist is concerned with a world of ideas, reveling in explanations and laboring to refine proofs of principles that underlie the workings of the world and (especially) the people in it. The salesman lives for the people they encounter each day, it is not simply about getting them to buy his/her product (or service or convictions or willingly-submit-to-whatever-it-is-the-salesman-wants…at that particular moment), it is about the interaction/negotiation/the ‘Close’. The machine operator lives for the precise execution of rules and laws, relationships and ideals, they find joy (and frustration) in learning the correct way to do job/cook a meal/build a society/live life.

As you’ve probably guessed, each of our three ‘personality types’ is more appropriate to one of these jobs than the others³.

clarks (Outsiders): scientists. if you think hard and observe the world around you, the rules that people follow to feel a part of the group will become knowable. (Career recommendations: school teacher (elementary or college), nurse (pediatric or geriatric) sheepherder, librarian, counselor (effective but not successful), one-term politician)
scotts (Predators): salesmen… I don’t really need to give examples here, do I? The guy on TV, the politician, the early developer in school doesn’t care if you buy or not (well, sorta) that they get to try to get you to (buy what they have/believe what they want you to/do what they feel like doing is what life is all about. (Career suggestions and ideas: cop (or robber), surgeon (but not physician and totally not an oncologist), nurse (charge nurse) teacher (High School industrial Arts, Gym or French…)
rogers (Members of the Herd): machine operator.. precision is the result of following the rules and precise application of the rules is how you get to that point, there is a right way to do everything (add and subtract/machine aircraft parts/play in a symphony/treat cancer/live life… being the best among many is its own reward. (Careers: Accountant, attorney (prosecuting) physician (oncologist), chemist, scientist, philatelist, chef (but not cook), firefighter politician (successful, multi-term)

That’s about all we have time for today. Thanks for coming by.

….the point? My misgivings about how I present the Wakefield Doctrine? Wellll I guess to learn the answer, you’ll just have to keep reading the posts.

1) see!?!?! damn!

2) enough with the explanation!! tell ’em what it’ll do for them!

3) the Wakefield Doctrine has something called ‘the Everything Rule’. It states, somewhat obviously, that ‘everyone does everything, at one time or another’. What that means is even though the most effective police (in the present culture) are scotts, that does not mean that there are no clarklike or rogerian police men and women. And, chemists are more likely to be rogers, yet you can find scotts and clarks in that profession. (look for the exploding laboratories). The point is, how well one does in a profession or job is very much related to how (that) job or profession manifests to them. One of the reasons that rogers make excellent accountants is that, for them, the world is quantifiable and knowable. So working with numbers is a joy, in and of itself.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine, three personality types

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘there, all set for the weekend.’

November 11, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

‘Una’s garden ready for Winter’s white quilt.’

The Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop was created by L Lewis way back in 1997. Given the fact the blogosphere had not been discovered, (or at least as well mapped as it is now), there was little participation. Her idea was a sound one and so, it survived until the (virtual) world caught up. Fast forward to sometime in the early 21st C and the Founderess realized that the time(s) were right. As is the case with many trailblazers, pioneers, experimenters, outsiders and explorers, L. tried it out on herself first. A one (wo)man blgohop. Word got out and soon people started gathering around.

hey! Here’s the line up in 2013: *

* I had 27 TToT post comments circa 2013. Except for a few people who switched from blogger to wordpress (I’m looking at you, zoe) and one or two who got to all the old Yearbooks with a pair of scissors… (totally looking at you, Considerer). But the rest? All of the links lead back to the original TToT post at their respective blogs. I looked (and I followed the links on a couple) and thought, ‘Man! This is good for at least 3 Grat Items.’ But then I got this ‘err, clark? Just a smidge on the wrong-side of edgy… maybe a little stalky, don’t ya think?’ and I had to agree. So if you want to find the wardrobe to 2013, ya gotta discover it for yourself.

Today the TToT is made available each week courtesy of the hard work and positive vibes of Josie Two Shoes. It may seem a simple thing, but given the attention and, more than anything, the energy that it takes to get this herd of hyper-literate cats heading in one direction? Way more than most of us are able to muster. Thanks, J!

On with the Grats!

1) The secret history of our-own-selfs inherent in the above-referenced blog posts. Available to all of us who have the necessary curiosity, spare time and rainy day.

2) The natural reticence of clarks. One of the qualities of clarks that makes it so difficult for us to participate in a free and open society/culture is our reluctance to reveal information about other people. That person you, (and everyone else), knows who’s a good listener? …yep, a clark. While we’re way too free with the information we squirrel away every waking moment, we are loath to pass along what we consider to be personal information, which tends to be everything except that which everyone already knows. Problem comes from society/culture being grounded, in part, in the exchange of valued information. On the positive end of that spectrum: an open and caring environment with people sharing their lives freely; on the negative end: gossip.

3) Seems to be a Wakefield Doctrine sorta TToT. So let’s make Number 3: the Wakefield Doctrine.

4) We got a new furnace this week.

5) Kerry. I’m grateful for having the opportunity to meet her here in the ‘sphere. And I’m grateful for the thing I’ve been doing with photos. The ‘description’ thing? That’s been a challenge, a benefit and a way to practice the writing thing, a direct result of knowing Kerry. Actually.…

6) …gotta give props to Kristi on this. She was my inspiration to do something more with photos on my TToT posts. (Some people are good and make sure you know it. A much, much smaller number of people are good and don’t expend any energy in self-promotion. They do good things for people because that’s who they are.) I’m not certain when she started writing descriptions as captions to her photos, but once I noticed, I thought, ‘Hey! What an excellent thing to do. I bet I can do that!‘ lol, well, kinda. Kristi’s descriptions are direct, sufficient and simple to the point of being elegant. My own, well, it’s understood (because the Doctrine tells us), my people are more inclined to…. follow the path less travelled? yeah! I like that.

7) The Graviteers. Val and Joy, Kristi and May

8) Una

‘Looking for the path to Summer’
(courtesy of Robert Heinlein from the title of his most excellent time travel story, ‘Door into Summer’)

9) Phyllis

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (From the Book of Secret Rules, aka the Secret Book of Rules and states, in part: “[t]he completion of a list of Ten Items is, in and of itself, a legitimate Grat Item and, may, provided it conforms to all reasonable, conventional and standard practices in placement (on said List) be cited as an Item. The anticipation (and therefore manifestation) of the completion considered, from an achronicological perspective¹, to have already occurred, despite, and, this constitutes warning to the Reader of the risk of infinite regression, the fact that it (the completion) cannot be said to exist until it is numbered, which can only follow the realization of the fact of completion.^{op.cit. ibid}

Click here to join the expectant crowds gathering at Dutch Elm St.*

* totally lifted that last part from FireSign Theatre

1) Yes, it is understood that, given the non-rational nature of emotion, the world of the Herd Members (rogers) is, essentially, achronicological… so, the next time you’re have a ….’discussion’ with a roger and for some reason tempers are about to flare (like that^{‘that is to say, with a slightly more positive correlation as the sun rising in the morning, as opposed to the evening.} ever happens with rogers) and they (the roger) suddenly get a distant look in their eyes, ask them, “What?” And even though they are not likely to answer truthfully, know that they (the roger) just flashed on some wrong done to them (real or imagined) when they were freshman in high school (or seniors in college, or just back from their honeymoon, or yesterday while standing in line at the Dunkin Donuts). And that moment is as real as whatever it is you two are arguing about.

(you’re welcome)

Who wants to hear some Biz Markie…ok, maybe some Falco?

Ok, if you insist, we’ll take a vote.

Still time to Vote!!

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

November 4, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Summer, a friend cherished for it’s boundless life and warmth, falters and falls behind. Even knowing it is the way of nature, one can’t help but to look back, hope becoming resignation to the turning of the seasons.
(modified portrait format…almost square)
Una is sitting on her haunches (that posture that seems to say, “You have hands? Big deal… betcha I’ll respond more positively to surprises than you and your hands”) in the lower left corner of the photo. If she were in front of you as you sat on your couch, her left foreleg would be pressing against your left shin.
Una is sitting on the globel-warming-green grass between me and my camera and her garden, in our backyard.
Her face is in profile, so there is the triangular black silhouette of her head and muzzle at the right top of the black rounded-triangle of her body. Her front legs are two sable uprights, twin fulcra to launch her into action should the need arise.
The upper half of the photo is a view of the garden. Nearest Una is the ‘A’ section of the garden where the celery still reach upward, desperate for salvation. Behind them are the stalks of corn that are still standing, the perfect symbol of New England autumn. They are collectively-angular and a lifeless light brown. They huddle together, clumps of the dying standing amid the flattened carpet of the dead that cover the formerly life-giving ground on either side. Very non-human, they are not malevolent as much as they are careless (devoid of the slightest sharing of feelings, the ultimate of unconcerned bystander). If God decided to kill all the angels in heaven, I believe the aftermath would look like this.
oh kay lets get back to Una!
Una, while sitting on the alert, has a cautious forward lean, that manages to convey a certain sadness at the scene behind her. Being a dog she does not regret the dying of the garden. Being a dog she accepts that the garden is now a different thing, a different place in her world.

I’m beginning to think that Summer is over. Not entirely because of the weather, which in the last week or two has been early-Septemberish in character. I’m beginning to think that Summer is over because it’s starting to get dark at, like, 3:00 pm (and we’re still on DST!). Given that our house is in the middle of a pine wood (photo below) which means our horizon is approximately 45 degrees up from ‘over there’, the sun sets early anyway. I suspect there is something more fundamental going on than mere temperature and light; the days are getting shorter. Doesn’t take a metaphysician to extrapolate that observation into something useful…to a clark. (lol)

‘The view from my writing place.’
This is a photo of squares and anti-squares. It is in landscape format. Filling the frame are two double-hung windows. Through and beyond the windows are pine trees.
The windows are comprised of four square panes of glass. We see that they are two windows because the dark wood that divides them on the vertical is twice as wide as the dark word that divides them on the horizontal. We recognize them as two windows because there are two white borders running from top-to-bottom on either side of these windows. These are white curtains. The innermost edge of the curtains show in silhouette like the decorative frosting around the top edge of a round cake.
In the lower left of the photo we see three-quarters of a square of my computer monitor. On the screen we can just make out the squares of the windows open on the display. It’s all about the squares with this here photo here.
It’s beyond the glass that we leave the land of squares and have to deal with anti-squares. The pine trees fill the scene from top to bottom, except for the far left, upper corner where white clouds against a blue sky shows due to the fact that the trees on that side of the scene, while just as tall, if not taller than the trees in the center and right, are farther away.
The telephone-pole trunks of the trees show as shy dark lines wherever the branches of green pine needles are not. Just when you think the branches are running on a horizontal, they bend upwards in tight clumps. Really kind of scottian trees. They grow very fast, they don’t go away in the winter, keeping green and rustlely in the middle of a damn blizzard and though they are taller than anything else around, they’re always having limbs break off. But even then, they don’t slow down, just keep growing.
lol…scottian trees.

Hey! Quick Grat Item… lets call it… Number 7 any scotts reading this should find a way to head south, even if only for a short visit. As a people, they are way prone to seasonal affective disorder. It doesn’t take much, just some extra sunlight to break the soul-crushing effects of approaching winter.

Ok… to get back to the topic, Josie Two Shoes works hard enough every week getting this train rolling, we shouldn’t make it more difficult by increasing the likelihood she’ll have to contend with messages, “I love the idea of sharing the parts of our lives that we feel grateful for and especially appreciate the orderly format asking for (up to) Ten Things of Thankful. Knowing that others feel the same goes a long way to making this a joyful exercise, not a chore at all. It’s a pleasure come and read the others… what is it with those Waynesville Doctrine people? Are they doing that on purpose or what? I mean, come on! How difficult is it to write ten numbers in sequence?”

On with the show.

Una and Phyllis start this week’s post at Items 1) and 2). Una does not mind winter’s cold, but, if truth be told, she not a big fan of snow. Sure, she runs through it and has fun but, our Chodský pes* prefers dry to wet and once you come in the house, wet follows snow like

Combined (1 & 2 cont’d): Phyllis and Una on google. Type ‘chodsky pes’ into the google search, click on images and you can see a photo of: Una as a very young puppy on the couch or…. Phyllis and Una in bed. (photo below, in case you don’t want to scroll through excessive canine cuteness).

‘Not yet entirely comfortable with the paparazzi’

Items 3-5 the bloghops out there in the ‘sphere. They are a critical element not only in my enjoyment of this place, but in the development of writerly skills:

Finish the Sentence Friday (with Kristi and them) Hey! I just remembered, Kristi said I could do a FTSF with her on the 9th of November! how cool would that be?
Six Sentence Story (zoe and Joules)
TToT (Josie Two Shoes)

These blogs are excellent illustrations of why (and how) the virtual world has cable TV beat, hands down.

6) the Wakefield Doctrine: because with it, I can see more than one path and…and! with an understanding of its principles, I can know more about other person than they know themselves!*

8) Sunday Supplement These Bounties for which we gratefully labor:

‘Mother’s Natures Vitamins and Swizzle sticks.’

9) ‘Open Mic Item’ Got a Grat, not yet comfortable doing a whole post but still feel good about this one thing (or person or place)? Send it in as a Comment and I’ll put it right here at Number 9

10) Secret Rule 1.3

(talk about your ‘Way Back Machine’!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8ba2eL7cI

Click on the photo and join us at the ‘hop

* unless, of course, they’re also students of our little personality theory….

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

Finishing Sentences* -the Wakefield Doctrine- *’cause it’s Friday

November 3, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Friday is Finish the Sentence Friday.

Finish the Sentence Friday is a bloghop we’ve participated in, starting way back in two thousand-something. A long time ago in regular years, a lifetime and a half, in blog years.

FTSF is hosted by Kristi and Mardra this week and is proving to be one of the most challenging FTSF posts I’ve come against in a long time. The premise of the ‘hop is straightforward, they write a sentence fragment and you, (the projecto-editorial ‘you’, meaning me, in this instance), complete the sentence and reveal your inner most self. Or a fraction thereof, like those particle collision things, you know…. the photo at the top of the post.

Anyway… this week’s fragment is giving me brain a run for the money. But, if my memory serves me, when, in the early days of this blog, I found myself without an idea around which to write a post, I’d just start in any random direction and trust my ability to write myself home.

”What’s priceless about…”

“…those people, places and things that we, (as individuals, privately and as groups, publicly), identify as ‘priceless’ is the lesson in right-living that’s buried within them.”

Kristi has said it better in her post about the fleeting nature of our capacity as individuals to fully appreciate the priceless parts of life, as they happen; fortunately we all possess a willingness to recollect those moments and they become specks of magic in the most mundane of lives. She do have a way of taking a very abstract aspect of life, putting it in her car and, idling in front of her friend’s homes, yelling out the window, “Hey! Come on out, I got someone you should meet.” Of course, we go out to the car and lean in the open window and get to know someone/something that we’re glad we had a chance to meet.

So, like most who would care to look within, I have priceless pieces and parts, moments and memories. In present or past, because, when you come right down to it, pretty much every priceless thing in our lives is a relationship and relationships can live as long as time.

And the extra lesson of ‘priceless’? They, (these priceless relationships), live in the moment, yet are so powerful, their power such, that they endure past that moment adding to what and who we are, even as we grow old and change.

Hey! I hear a car horn, honking out front.

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- “Kitchen sinks? Those’ll be at the end of Aisle 3”

October 21, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Una on her Friday walk, being chased by Autumn
This landscape format photo is divided into thirds. The far left third is simple: a car’s windshield in the top half and dashboard in the lower half. The dashboard is a smooth grey surface that shows a faint reflection of the windshield above it. There is a matte-shiny strip of silver metal running on the horizontal along the lower edge of this grey expanse. Through the glass of the windshield (which has an odd shape, like a half-rectangle with dreams of being a circle) we see trees standing against a sky that is curiously devoid of color or detail. There is a blurriness to the leaves (green and yellow) that conveys a sense of motion. For reasons not available in the photo, it’s not clear if it’s us moving past the trees or the trees fleeing something we cannot see.
The right third of the photo is black. No features, reflections, hints at activity or the existence of a clue to it’s nature. Black. Dark. A void of both color and feature.
The middle third of this landscape format photo is where our story begins and ends.
Where the black from the right meets the light from the left we see, in the foreground, the silhouette of a dog. Una. Like one of those optical illusions that insist there are two distinct shapes, all you have to do is decide which you want to believe in and… there it is!
We see a dog shaped by the darkness, a pointing nose slightly concave on the top, a sensuous curve along the lower edge, a prominent chest.
We see Una shaped by light from the windshield, the end of her nose a shiny chicklette, the lighter brown of her eye brows and below that, her eye. (This being a profile, there is still much we must take on faith). She looks forward, and, within the half globe of her eye, a smaller curved square of reflected light.
Her expression is not casual. It is focused on the road ahead and decidedly not on the scene to her immediate right.
To her immediate right, and in the background, (of this middle third of the photo), is the slightly slanted rearview mirror. Attached to the exterior of the passenger door, it affords a view of what is behind the car. In fact, the lozenge-shaped reflection shows the sky and the road that the car is moving away from.
(Pat B. suggests that this is the source of the concern in Una’s eye. I do not totally disagree.)

Hey! It’s Saturday and this is the Ten Things of Thankful.

Simple enough premise: write a list of ten things (people, places or things, dogs, cats, the ambient temperature, the change of seasons, the result of the people in our lives, the institutions that impact our days and memories of those who are no longer physically present. you know, those things.)

Format: ten (or more, or less) comprising a list, a recount, a story or random reminiscence.

1) Josie Two-Shoes for the care and attention she puts into getting this opportunity out there each and every week. I say ‘opportunity’ simply because participation in the TToT is open to any and all who might encounter, follow-up on a rumor or decided to put the scary bloghop stories they heard as young bloggers to rest, “…and once the English woman gathered eight of the best writers she could find, a message appeared, without a return address, that said, ‘Watch your host demographics, Missy’ and, out of nowhere this new(ish) blog, the Wakefield Doctrine showed up on the doorstep, and, like the character Meatloaf played in ‘Fight Club’, he just wouldn’t go away until they invited him to be the 10th host.”

2) Phyllis and Una (my not that weird a person credentials)

3) ‘caught-up’ with old friends* at the Finish the Sentence Friday bloghop

4) Friend of the Doctrine, Christine, posted a photo on ‘the Facebook’ that made me smile** She was kind enough to allow me to post it here. And, yes, she was, in fact, one of the original co-hostinae and no, I will not indulge in the obvious joke.***

photo courtesy of Christine Woodruff

October 2017

5) ‘Finish the Sentence Friday is actually the first bloghop I participated in here in the blogosphere. Back then, it was an exciting time and, with a keyboard full of parentheseseses and an extra italics pencil**** I was made to feel welcome by the real people who hosted it. That being a total bonus, seeing how then, as now, I am driven by the Doctrine for which I am eternally grateful (number 6)

6) the Wakefield Doctrine. As I appear to be inferring in Item 5 (or alluding to, not really sure which is more better the word.*****) the Wakefield Doctrine has provided the energy, the nerve, the disregard of my normal tendency to avoid the spotlight, all in the service of telling people about our little personality theory. It (the Wakefield Doctrine and it’s promulgation) is nothing less than a passion.

7) Anyone who has only one (or two) Grat Items, would enjoy seeing it ‘in print’ but doesn’t have the time to write a whole post around it (unlike some writer’s I could mention)… send it in as a Comment and I’ll post it here. (If you don’t mind the ‘weird by association effect’ lol) We have a Grat

7) I am thankful for you – Clark! (from Phyllis)

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

10) Secret Rule 1.3

* yeah, I know… a clark ‘catching up with old friends’ image: standing adjacent to a group of people who are laughing and talking amongst themselves, except…. the clark is almost totally facing the group¹

** who said ‘two worms on the sidewalk a day after a rain’? ²

*** famous story about her family’s first (or second year) at the farm

**** why yes! it does look like a carpenter’s pencil, except it has a triangular profile and the lead is red(ish)

***** ok, lets check. Why you’re completely correct! I totally go to the dictionary when I write posts and am comfortable with that because, well, it’s one of the scant and questionable advantages of being a clark ³ infer v allude ( allude: ‘To refer to something indirectly or by suggestion’ infer: To introduce (something) as a reasoned conclusion; to conclude by reasoning or deduction, as from premises or evidence’ (courtesy WikiDiff) gonna go with ‘just like the Doctrine says!’)

1) well, sure, he sorta keeps watch on the rest of the room, but still, almost totally facing the group

2) well, no, your little metaphor is not inappropriate, in fact it is kinda effective as one of the First Order identifiers of clarks is the ‘pressed lip smile’ ..you know what that looks like (‘desire restrained by caution’)

3) well, its the thing about how we all have a thing/quality/characteristic, or perhaps it’s better to say that the reality we experience the world from, conveys certain qualities…. in any event, clarks have no self-consciousness whatsoever about not knowing stuff, hence the looking up of words (rather, the mentioning of looking up words and such)

this week’s music