relationships | the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

June 15, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Wednesday evening. This is the warm-up phase of my effort to come up with a Six Sentence Story for tomorrow. I kinda wander around in my head, double-check the prompt word. Yep, the word is ‘Link’. Now all I have to do is figure how to write what I think I want to write.

Besides being fun, zoe’s bloghop, the Six Sentence Story, (in which readers are invited to make up a story using exactly six sentences), is not only fun, it’s educational, (lots of excellent writing), and a great opportunity to practice. Sort of like ‘open mike’ for the writing crowd. It’s one thing to ‘practice’ at home. It’s entirely another to write for readers…against a deadline. So come join us.

L*i*n*k

The dog barked a warning to unseen nighttime animals from the quiet living room in the nearly empty house, while in a back bedroom, the man’s concentration remained solidly on shifting one of the tiny parts that made up the intricately carved wooden cube; with a surprisingly loud click and more motion than it’s size should have permitted, a piece moved and, dropping the artifact into the pool of green-felt light, his hands sought comfort at the grey-fringed sides of his head, an unconscious effort to slow the motion that grew from somewhere behind his stomach, rippling up towards his mind, the room around him faded and was redrawn…
[Link].

“I thought you finished your homework, honey,” the tidal wave of disorientation receded and the man felt a growing need to howl at the sudden loss of familiarity, the dark study in the quiet house now replaced with a bright, colorful room and a voice that turned his body in the chair, (his feet somehow not reaching floor), towards the open doorway. The darkness behind the figure flickered with bluish light as a woman, the spitting image of his mother, only much too young, continued to speak, “…your grandfather meant you to have that as a keepsake, not a toy to play with and break,” stepping into the room, the shadows from the hall remained a shawl over her shoulders, she picked up the intricately-carved wooden cube and, touching one side, said, “look you’ve loosened this piece, let me…”
[Link].

“He keeps saying that you must bring something from his room in your home, a small, carved wooden puzzle. I must say, while many of our residents become fixated on certain ideas, it’s usually repetition for its own sake; your grandfather is different, I assume it’s a memento from early in his life, I trust that you haven’t arrived too late…”
[Link].

“Now push… that’s right, keep breathing, just like you practiced,” the young doctor smiled too broadly at the woman on the bed, she knew only the need that grew from her body, when she heard him say, in a tone that strained to overcome his limited experience, “Nurse, I need you here now!”, sensed a quiet increase in activity outside the pool of quiet light…
[Link].

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

-the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘the coolest thing about the Wakefield Doctrine?’

June 14, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

The coolest (and best) thing about the Wakefield Doctrine is not that we get to make statements such as “Everyone lives in a perfect world”, and it is not the fun of asserting, “Everyone works exactly as hard at life as everyone else does.” Nope making these statements isn’t what this Post, (and its tantalizing questionistical subtitle), is proposting.

What does makes the Doctrine so cool, is that if a person is able to apply the perspectives inherent in the Doctrine to their world, these (and many other, equally outrageous declarations), become totally self-evident and, true even.

You know whats the hardest part of this ‘applying of (a) Wakefield Doctrine perspective’ process? (And it’s not confined to the Wakefield Doctrine), its that any philosophy or belief system that offers an alternative path (in life and such) always demands payment in exchange for it’s benefits. And, just to make matters worse, the price is not, strictly speaking, a ‘quid pro quo’*. What is asked for/demanded, for the privilege of enjoying the benefits of an additional perspective, is that one relinquish the bedrock-certainty of knowing the nature and character of reality. Many Readers are muttering into coffee-shadowed cups, “Hey! I’m open-minded. I know lots of people who see the world different than me, and, well, I got no problem with that!”

(…almost. this close. Unfortunately, that is not the level of acceptance of the validity and reality of another’s worldview required in order to take full advantage of a perspective(s) as contained in the Wakefield Doctrine.)

But enough of the coyness. Here’s a fun** experiment. I was roaming the contemplative and hallowed halls of the Facebook the other day, and a person wrote about losing friends. He concluded that the cause was related to the current politico-cultural mashup thats currently sweeping the world, (like a seaweed and ice cream sandwich wrapper cluttered wave, moon-pushed up the beach farther than any of the previous 3,897 waves). Anyway, being a thoughtful person, he wrote that maybe it was something in him, maybe his own views (on the state of ‘the world’) were at the heart of the problem of otherwise seemingly compatible people running away.

I offered the following: find a person in your life that has seemed like a normal, regular person who, if they are not currently long-standing friends, have the resume to make a successful bid for the job… except of one part. They are totally fervent believers in (fill in the blank with politics/religion/scientific opinion…whatever). You are forced to scratch your head and think (or say), “I just don’t understand how a person like Joe/Jane can believe in that!! He/She is an intelligent, educated, accomplished person, but they believe in….” Now imagine that, from their perspective (i.e. the reality that they are experiencing) there is nothing incongruous in their beliefs.

When you can be comfortable with that, you’re ready to pay the price for the power of alternate perspectives on reality.

And, the irony is that for most of us, when we confront the notion of surrendering the exclusivity of an idea or belief, premise or tenet, our initial reaction is that we are being threatened with a loss. When, in fact, when we accept that our belief or tenet or premise or perspective is not exclusive, we open ourselfs to adding to what we have, what we are.

Ya know?***

* Latin phrase inserted to culture-up this little post, and since there isn’t an ‘Illuminated Text’ font handy, this will have to suffice to provide, you know credentials.

** no, really, it is fun

*** well, sure I can explain what I mean by the cool thing about making inflammatory and outrageous statements and claims and such… have to be the next post… be sure to bring along your scottian aspect!

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

Two ‘T’ oh ‘T’ -the Wakefield Doctrine-

June 11, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Sunset over the land on the far side of the harbor of the Port of Galilee in Narragansett RI. We’re standing in the parking lot. The sun has just touched the earth and is putting up a fight. The center of the sun is too-bright-to-look-at white but it’s bleeding red to the sides, the remains of the day spreads, bright yellow into pale yellow into a tired rose, spreading to the right and left. The color, more hues and shades than primary colors, stands out against the dark line of the earth. The top third of the scene is comprised of evening gray clouds against the previous afternoon’s blue sky, settling downwards, like blankets on an un-made bed. In the immediate foreground is water, bracketed by boats tied up to docks. There is a single, vertically-serrated line of sunlight that crosses the water in the middle of scene. If you’re inclined to think that this line (which almost touches the setting sun) is a support, a pylon for the still too bright to see sun, you’d be disappointed. If you stare at the light in the water, you end up feeling certain that it, (the line of sunlight), is a hopeless lifeline thrown towards shore.

This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop. Organized and presented by Josie Two Shoes every weekend, the TToT is a grat ‘hop with a difference. As the title suggests, the idea is to relate to readers and fellow writers the people, places and things for which you are grateful. What sets this grat blog apart is that the only true requirement (for participation) is ‘good intent’. (Yes, that is a rather vague term. It is also a hugely inclusive, wildly open-ended term, which is why I use it. A very simple ambition, though, to act with good intent. But now I run the risk of stem winding*, so on with the show.)

Lets begin with something simple… (someone tell zoe that ‘guffaw’ is not, in most circles, the optimal response)

2) A Friday Walk with Una (unplugged)

3) What do you mean, ‘Where did Number 1 go?’ How would I know?! Here I am, sitting at my computer on a Sunday morning looking for a photo of Phyllis to anchor it’s own Item and I realize that not only am I out of sequence, there are numbers missing!

5) Hey! Go to Amazon at this link and treat yerself to a muy coolita** coloring book created by our friend Cynthia, she is a living example that with determination and a willingness to follow the path no matter what, a person can totally self-develop themselfs. Go to her site ‘Intuitive and Spiritual‘ she’ll show you how.

Una sitting at the dining room table. In front of her (she is facing to the left in the spindle-back chair), on a white tablecloth with a field of small rose-colored squares, is a black laptop computer. On top of the laptop is a gift from Friend of the Doctrine Cynthia. It’s copy of her just-published adult coloring book, ‘The Tree of Life’. The cover has a tree taking up the top 2/3s. The tree is a very simple trunk, two parallel lines rising and curling apart to blend in with the individual leaves of the tree. These leaves are elongated ovals with smaller colorful ovals contained within. It is a very cool thing.

6) Phyllis and Una

Phyllis and Una. Phyllis has her hand on Una’s head and laughing at the camera, in part, and you have to look closely, due to the fact that Una, for reasons known only to her, is sticking her tongue out.

8) Garden Update:

A photo in portrait orientation (taller than it is wide by half). We’re standing before the Una garden, the ‘U’ is easily discerned with it’s brown, raw soil cut out of the pale green of the lawn. From where we stand, the ‘U’ could be an ‘n’. The open part of the letter is to the left, the bottom is to the right. The other letters, due to the angle, are visible only as thin brown lines shrinking into the distance. (The space within both the ‘n’ and the ‘a’ of ‘Una’ is foreshortened so much as to be non-distinguishable). Above and beyond the letters the lawn continues until it runs into a wall of tall pine trees. The horizontal branches of the trees are lighter and almost fuzzy green. The trunks of the trees are black and very straight, parallel lines. In the immediate foreground left, is our cairn. The pile of stones and rocks. They are roughly rounded in texture and the predominate shape is cubes-trying-to-be-squares. There is an oval stone, long axis upright, in the front of the pile from our perspective. Colors fall victim to texture, grayish white, turning dark from shades formed by their own surfaces. They look old and common, but friendly enough.

View of the garden from the house. Actually from a second story window. The letters are clearly letters, (capital ‘U’, small ‘n’ and small ‘a’). The brown of the raw soil ranges from dark, (where the soil appears damp), to light brown. The cairn is to the far left side of the photo and the rocks look pretty much all white, but that ‘stone white’ rather than chalk white. It’s easy to see the individual stones, being as ‘simply solid’ as stones tend to be, what little space might be between the individual rock are full of shadow black, contrasting nicely, even at this distance.

9) Home and Heart (a Sister Margaret Ryan story). Double Chapter week this week! Chapters 11 and 12 will be out tomorrow morning. (For those falling behind on our tale, Sister Margaret is having lunch with her mother and her brother, Father Matthew Stephen, (yeah, seems to run in the family). She is asked to do something about the foreclosure on the family home. Meanwhile, Sister Catherine is with Roanne Avila getting similar bad news from an attorney about the recently-windowed young woman’s home and, worse, there appears to be a problem reaching her daughter, Patrice. Finally, Arlen Mayhew (yes, a descendant of the Thomas Mayhew, who established the first settlement on Martha’s Vineyard) and Drusilla Renaude (of Renaude and Associates, the brokerage selected by the Bernebau Company to market their newest development to be located in and around Crisfield MD), are on a corporate jet headed to Miami. There. All caught up. Join us at ‘Home and Heart’ things are about to get curiouser and curiouser

7) Lets go for a quick visit to the 1980s for a little music to get out of this admittedly odd TToT post.

10) SR 1.3

* ‘Stem winding’, hey! I thought the phrase meant, to indicate, by the winding of a watch, that a speech is going long. Apparently there is more, including it’s first usage as a statement of high quality, from back when a wristwatch was a luxury. Here… read it for yourself.

** probably not ‘real’ Spanish… heck, probably not real words in any langauge

Click on this here icon here and come join us at the TToT (“tell ’em the Doctrine sent ya’)

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine

May 13, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

A photo of a pineapple upside down cake* The view is from slightly above and in front, so that the full height of the edge closest to the camera is visible. The cake is on a white plate that shows as a bright crescent in 3/4s of a circle around the cake. The cake itself is varying shades of brown. The slices of pineapple on top are a shiny, pale yellow and there are cherries on the top (mostly in the center of each pineapple slice). The cherries are very red (one might be tempted to say ‘cherry red’ but one suspects a trap in so simple a description). The top of the cake is shiny enough to reflect light (little spots of white on each cherry and other places on round top). The side of the cake is mostly light brown, darkening at the very base where it looks crumbly, like the top of a coffee cake. * well, in answer to the un-asked question, this is the Wakefield Doctrine, we pretty much go stream of conscious on these posts. but you probably guessed that already

This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop, hosted by Josie Two Shoes each and every weekend. It is a ‘gratitude blog’ with a difference. The difference very much being what is asked of participants. (Of course, every and all bloghop(s) have requirements (although, it might be fair to use the work ‘definition’), because, well, because you wouldn’t want to work hard on your post of the perfect pineapple upside down cake, complete with alphabetized ingredient list, oven temperature (in both F and C), recommended sources of the basic materials, and, of course, time-lapse photos of every step of the process from, start to finish only to discover, (after seeing that your post received 1400 views, 6 blocks and a scathing letter from Facebook censors), that you’d posted it to ‘Cars, Craters and Babes.com’. (Why yes, that certainly was a long way to go for a slight chuckle and a, “those people at that Wakefield Doctrine, I do declare”).

So the idea is to share a glimpse of your reality. It is a given (at the Wakefield Doctrine) that perspective is the secret of the universe.

1) Una Garden update: In soil reclamation phase. The soil in our yard is way inhospitable to anything other than pine trees, moss and violets. The layer of loam is only a few inches deep, then it goes to clay and gravel. The solution is to dig up the good dirt. Dig up the gravel to a depth suitable to a successful vegetable garden. Replace it with good dirt. (photo below)

A photo of the Una garden. The left half of the capital ‘U’ and the upper left quarter of the small ‘n’ have had dirt dug up and removed. The top of the photo is the interesting part. There is a ‘lumpy, lozenge-shaped pile of dirt on top of a pale, almost aqua blue, square. Hard to see, but there is a red wheelbarrow at the right end of this pile of dirt. My gardening is all about the primary colors, apparently, no 64 crayon Crayola set (“Now with built-in sharpener!!) necessary to draw a picture.

2) I will cite health and (mostly) working body parts as Item 2 on the basis of being able to dig up dirt and move it from one place to another place, one of my all-time favorite things to do in life.*

3) * Speaking of Mother’s Day, actually Item 2 totally makes me think of Mothers Day. My love of digging. No, wait! I’m totally serious. I trace my life-long love of digging to a throw-away remark from my mother when I was 5, maybe 6 years old. I still remember the phrase, if not the context, ‘Clark never be ashamed of honest work. Even if you’re only digging ditches for a living, it’s something to be proud of.” And, to this day, I derive pleasure from the act of digging, not simply what the digging produces. So my compliment-in-a-question to those readers who have children is, ‘Given my example of the power of a mother (or father) in shaping a child’s mind, how do you work up the nerve to say or do anything with very young children?!!’ (My customary joke with the digging story is, ‘Why couldn’t she have said, “..even if you’re only driving around in an Aston Martin full of movie starlets, it’s something to be proud of.”

4) Chapter 8 of ‘Home and Heart‘ is on the shelf. I’m trying to get myself back to the once-a-week, Sunday Night publishing schedule. Hoping to get that re-established this weekend.

5) the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) a perennial Item on our TToT posts, the Doctrine is both useful and amusing. A wish for many of us from the moment we stepped off the school bus for First Grade. Anyway, this past week, I was driving around, (seen Item 6) and talking to Phyllis, (see Item 8) and something came up in the conversation about ‘the three jobs’ (as defined in the Wakefield Doctrine). They are: Salesman, Scientist and Machine Operator. All jobs, professions, vocations, avocations and hobbies can not only be characterized as one of these three, but, as with so much of the Doctrine, links and associations between traits of the three personality types offer a very helpful perspective on the behavior of the people in our lives. (Hint1: the underlying principle of the Wakefield Doctrine is that our ‘personality type’ informs us of the relationship between (us) and the world around us. Hint2: scotts are Salesmen, clarks are Scientists and rogers are Machine Operator). Just in case Hint2 is not sufficiently intriguing, consider this: the definition of Machine Operator includes symphony orchestra musicians. No, really!

6) I am very grateful that the work I do allows me to drive around, and, if the need or desire strikes, talk on the phone while doing so.

7) Thanks to zoe for the photo of Skip on the landing page of the post (one of my favorite dog photos) (A most excellent doggie)

Phyllis and a (very) young Ola This photo is from, like, 1991. Phyllis is sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor which is a grayish color. She is wearing khaki pants and a white blouse with purple stripes forming large squares. Sitting in front of Phyllis is Ola, a German Shepherd puppy. She is kinda sprawled (Ola, not Phyllis) Leaning against Phyllis’s folded legs, she has a toy mouse in her mouth (Ola, not Phyllis) and is totally staring at the camera. Her ears are up (which is unusual, as German Shepherds take 18 months to have their ears mature enough to stand up). Ola is probably not yet a year old and her colorings are mostly black, with beige front legs and some lightness around her eyes. The inside of her ’rounded triangular’ ears is pink enough to see in the photo.

9) Yeah, I’m totally sure I’ll see something cool tomorrow, be sure to come back!

10) Secret Rule 1.3 ( as cited from the Book of Secret Rules, (aka the Secret Book of Rules), ‘the act and fact of the completion of, in liming as you complete Item 9, the gratitude felt upon this stage of completion may serve as its own Item.’ It is customary to place SR 1.3 in the number 10 spot, but, there is a body of thought that would propose that provided the writer could produce convincing and compelling evidence of the (future) completion of the list, they could put it any damn place they wanted. (lol)

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

Toosday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘of new chapters and old reprints.’

May 2, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

a gazebo at the end of a wood-plank walkway, chainlink fences on either side. two outdoor benches are on the left and one on the right, about halfway to the end. the bushes along the walk and the sky suggest a seaside location. (that would be a correct suggestion)

Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 of ‘Home and Heart‘ (a Sister Margaret Ryan novel) is out, available and can be read at jukepop. com

Thought I’d do a reprint post.

Hey, do you know that despite the fact that the Wakefield Doctrine does not base its inferences and predictions on the results of a ‘What’s your favorite color’, ‘If you could be any microorganism which would you be’ or even, “Someone has you cornered in a dark alley and, on the top of the garbage can next to you are three items: a hand mixer, a bent-corner copy of ‘Candide’ and…. what would you need to combine with the other two so that you could leave the alley as unscathed as you might desire?’

You know, those kinds of personality quizzes. The type of questionnaire that once was found in the back of magazines that never had an offer of subscription, lately is found on whatever secret pages in ‘the Facebook’ that give rise to postings that include the statements, “And then what happened will leave you shocked…” “And their comeback left them in…. (try shock)” or “I got (fill in the blank), that nearly always prompts one person to say to another, “Come here! You have to take this test, they so have your number!” (At the Doctrine we call these personality assessments, ‘club-shaped mirrors’.

(July 18, 2013)

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

I was ‘talking’¹ to Considerer last night.

me: “Considerings (the blog) has been real busy…you’re getting good reviews”

Lizzie: “It has been indeed! At some point I’m hoping to reach a tipping point and snag a few more members/followers/groupies… I have been pleasantly surprised, because I am trying to take your advice and learn rogerian (see my new tab when you get a chance)”

me: “damn, I hate to see you spending all your time re-inventing the axle! You have the Doctrine down to the point that you should be out there pushing the boundaries of (our) understanding.”

So I told our newest DownSpring, write me a question (about the Wakefield Doctrine) and I might use it as a launching point in an effort to present where the hot topics and current challenges are in our efforts to learn, use and have fun with the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers.

(here’s Lizzie’s Question):

‘How you came up with such a thorough Doctrine. And whether or not all the Doctrine views are ‘but only through the eyes of a clark‘, in which case,what might the other views think (or would they?)”

My Answer: ‘No’

The Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the idea of personal reality. Simply put, the totality of your experience of the world around you is more than the aggravation² of objective facts, (who, what, where, why and when). Reality involves interpretation of the external ‘objective’ world. Nothing earth-shaking there. The Doctrine is concerned with, ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’. No one should have a problem with that as a starting point. The Wakefield Doctrine holds that there are three characteristic worldviews (those personal realities we spoke of just now). Since the Wakefield Doctrine purports to be a personality theory, we have three personality types. The difference between us and the mainstream personality systems that immediately appears, is that the Wakefield Doctrine is not particularly concerned with the individual (as a source of information to determine personality types) per se. Rather, the primary goal of a person employing our Doctrine is to infer which of the three worldviews are being experienced. If we correctly infer that a person is living in, (and has grown up and developed in), the personal reality that we call, ‘that of the Outsider’ then we have what we call a clark. (and so with the respective worldviews of the Predator and the Herd).

Where the work of the Wakefield Doctrine currently lies, is in our efforts to develop a language that can be understood by an individual (from) the perspective of any of the three worldviews.⁴
The three worldviews are different. They are different in terms of how they require a successful ‘inhabitant’ to relate to them. This is a qualitatively, fundamentally, scrumptiously different difference (between the three worldviews). Lets go with the bullet points:

clarks live in a worldview (in which) the individual is an Outsider. if you are an Outsider, what is the first thing that occurs to you to do? what quality/capability/capacity found in (a) human being is best suited to this task? And while you are engaged in this effort what would you fear and what would you hope for

scotts live in a worldview (in which) the individual is a Predator. what is the first thing that occurs to you to do? (now to expand on the line of reasoning we followed with clarks), how you describe the world to another person is a function of how you relate yourself to the world (that) you find yourself in, (we call this ‘how the worldview manifests’), from the perspective of having the world of the Predator to relate yourself to and, given the range of human expression available how would you be inclined to express yourself to those around you?

rogers live in the world of the Herd, the nature of the world for the person who lives in this worldview is relatedness what would it be like, to look around at the people and the places and the things and the activities and the past and the future in a context in which everything (and everyone) is connected in some way?

The challenge of creating a ‘common language’ lies in the fact that in languages there are sounds and there are concepts that are exclusively the domain of one’s context, environment …world and is not necessarily even possible in the other two worldviews. And it is surely these ‘exclusive/characteristic/native’ concepts, that are critical to understanding/acting in/feeling the true nature of the three personal realities. For better or worse, the Doctrine maintains that we are all heir to the three ways to experience the world, so our job is to learn, understand, identify with, feel and do something with each of these distinct, though somewhat in common worlds.

We talk about our initial efforts to understand/act/feel the three worldviews as acquiring fluency. Only reasonable, no? You have three cultures that have only the biology of their inhabitants in common and you want to create a language that allows productive interaction between the three…first thing you better do is become fluent in each native language. Then find common ground. Then…then! try and convince those stubborn bastards that not only is this a good idea, but they will be better off once they learn to save the lava-walking and the witch-burning for their once-a-year culture celebrations and stand acting like the evolved people that we want to hang out with (and we promise to stop mumbling and hoping to be forgiven).

Any questions? Outrageous acts? Overwhelming Feelings?

(oh yeah!! new Readers? clarks think…scotts act and rogers feel. If you have the kind of mind that enjoys playing with ideas and you have the sharpness of intellect that you will see when you look at Cyndi (the brilliant young clarklike female currently known as Cynthia) and Considerer and the others you might just get something out of this!)

1) actually I was typing…not one of the more effective ways for me to communicate

2) a rogerian expression³