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Ten Things of Thankful -the Wakefield Doctrine- late edition!

March 5, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Slow start this weekend, it being Saturday night at 9:43 already!

As the new Mistress of the Thankfuls*, Wendy/Josie has re-affirmed what, (imo), has, in part, accounted for the success of this here bloghop here, and that is, ‘good intent always trumps rules and requirements’. Sure, there is the implied rule of 10 Items as a baseline number, but there are few among us who have not encountered a week where we are hard-pressed to hit that number.

(She and I had a Commentvation about certain artifacts from TToT.1 such as the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules). The consensus was that traditions and in-blog jokes are wonderful and enjoyable as long as they don’t appear, to a new Reader or participant, to be an ‘inside joke’. She (Josie) has a talent for presenting ideas in such a way as to make alternative perspectives not only possible, but attractive. I quite got the perspective she was suggesting and not only agree with her, I also perceive a challenge that can only result in my own self-improvement of myself in terms of my writing skills and such.

So, on with the TToT for this week.

1) I would start with the easy ones** (hey! I really am grateful for having: a) things and people and dogs in my life that constantly stimulate a gratitudinous response and 2) participating in a gratitude blog that not only allows for…. liberal interpretation of acceptable forms of expression, but actually kinda encourages it. (So put me down for #1)

2) In the category of lifeforms (human and non-human) Phyllis and Una have total tenure in these pages.

3) holy smoke! It’s Sunday afternoon! (I am not going to claim smoke, Sunday or (the) afternoon as a Grat item. (Although I can see one L Rogers, somewhere (hopefully in a excessively english-looking library, or, weather permitting, in an english garden (on an uncomfortable looking, but period necessary, wrought-iron chair around a circular table, Delft Blue tea pot in the center, english looking cookies (macaroons or macadoons or some form of overly dense, hyper-desiccant pastry), her eyebrow, slowly rising, dragging one corner of her smile upwards, “Good ahead, clark! Lets see you try to make these three things, Things of Thankful, I dare, you, I double dare you!”) I will not.

4) I typed, ‘The End’ to ‘Almira‘. The final Chapter is written and our tale has ended. I’m still processing the feelings. It’s always been a good feeling to finish a Chapter as I have each week for nearly a year. But this is different. The story is complete. That there is as much work yet to do to find an agent and a publisher does not impinge on the good feeling.

5) the un-alloyed gratitude I have, here mid-way through my list for a small group of readers who have been with me every chapter of the way: Phyllis, Denise, Val, Kerry and Lise. I am totally in debt to you guys for your encouragement and feedback. Thank you.

6) The Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)… my favorite Latin phrase still totally says it all, ‘sine qua non’ (‘without which, not‘)

7) The Graviteers over at the Gravity Challenge ( val, joy, lisa, sarah, kristi and may)

8) zoe and her Six Sentence Story bloghop every Thursday a new prompt word and reality gets a little more permeable and you’ll see (and read) some of the strangest things… very fun, you are invited.

9) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)… we’ll be coming back to this wonderful portal-allegorical over the weeks. I might describe it as ‘the opportunity to enjoy the creative writing implied in the TToT, while remaining true to the spirit of the blog, which is encourage people to share those parts of their lifes and times that might engender the experience of gratitude.’ I will demonstrate it with the next item. the ever useful and popular, Secret Rule 1.3

10) SR 1.3 (so, as all good stories should begin, once upon a time, when I was totally at wit’s end coming up with a list of Ten Things of T, I despaired of reaching what I considered the end of my week’s list, the Tenth Thankful. Although it is clear that 10 is a good number, a list of three or fifty-five or eighteen Things of Thankful is what the TToT is all about, I did not know that. I tend to have to struggle with every list, (yeah, I know, ‘knock you over with a feather’ lol), in any event, I was almost there, but, as zoe would say, when it came to Item 10, ‘I had nothin’. It then occurred to me that the very near completion of my list was something I could legitimately be thankful for! cha ching! the Tenth Item! (Many have commented that the effort to explain the rule is probably more than the effort to complete the 10th item. I would say, ‘yes and no’ Yes it’s true but no, the effort (in this case, to explain SR 1.3) is a part of my contribution to the common effort represented in the TToT bloghop every week. It is to say, ‘hey, I might be from Y Chromia and have trouble with emotions and such, but here! look! I found a really neat book!’

lol

* yeah, does sound odd when you say it out loud, and silently when you read it, for that matter.

** for the record, I am not one inclined to readily recognize those things that I should feel grateful for, not solely due to my hailing from the land of Y Chromosomes

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

Monday Post on Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 27, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Given that this post is being written on Monday, it is, prima facie, a post intended for clarks.

(How do you know if you are clark, and therefore qualified to read this here post here? Good question*)

The Wakefield Doctrine provides for three ‘personality types’: clarks, scotts and rogers. Further, the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we are, all of us, born with the potential to become any of the three. Further, it is understood that though we become one type (predominant personality) we never lose the capacity of seeing the world as the ‘other two’ might. The development of our predominant personality type is the result of adapting to the world we find ourselves in, as but a child. The quality and characteristics of the personality types are a reflection of our personal realities, as opposed to inherent drives and impulses, urges and predilections. The Doctrine does not seek to identify your type by your description of what you like and dislike, hope for and fear. All we do is ask you to consider three descriptions of the world. The one that makes ‘most sense/looks good/feels right’ is the key to identifying your predominant personality type as:

clark: the Outsider living in a place apart from, a life of observation, a person who seeks to blend in for fear of being discovered yet does not tolerate being ignored; for a clark, the world (and it’s peoples) is a place, it’s ‘out there’, it’s always waiting for them each and every morning and chases them into the night’s darkness
scotts: the Predator the only one of the three who would demonstrate the rather banal (popular with rogers) expression that ‘Life is Good’. scotts demonstrate this sentiment, they do not embrace it, by virtue of the fact that, for (a scott) life is meant to be lived, in and of the here and now. reflection and conscience are drags on their efforts; scotts run towards the day regardless of what awaits them and they will chase the day (and the world and it’s peoples) into the night, sleeping only when their efforts exhaust their capacity
rogers: the Herd Member they lead perfect lives, orderly lives, lives quantifiable. to be a roger is not only to know what it is to be alive, it is to know why and what must be done to live properly; there are no accidents in the lives of rogers, there are only surprises and wrongs to be accounted for; the day is a set number of hours in which the goodness (and, don’t forget, perfection) of their time on earth is to be demonstrated; without the rogerian influence we would all be roaming the savannah, eating to live and hiding to survive.

So there you have it!

oh…yeah, one more thing!

How to apply the insights and secrets, help and cautions of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)? It’s all about ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’ today. Totally important note: The wording is critical and not what you might think you read. Once more, ‘how we relate ourselves to the world around us’. As we leave the computer or phone that are whispering these thoughts, do not be as concerned with ‘how you relate to the world today’….be it at school with teachers and friends, girlfriends-to-be, bullies-to-avoid or at work where your life can be twisted into a shape that is better than or into a shape that you are forced to drag through your life, returning home in the evening both embarrassed and fearful, or if you’re maintaining the life of your family (biological or social) and doing this and doing that, don’t waste you time on how you relate, spend your time in consideration of ‘how you relate yourself, to the world’.

I didn’t say it, but someone did, ‘to thine ownself be true’

….yo

lol

* which, of course, is suggestive of being a clark! for most clarks, we’ve never met a question a question we didn’t find interesting!**

** if you understand the reason for the italics, and the inference… you can stop reading, you are so a clark

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

-the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘I replace the broken keyboard and the first thing I post is a ‘re-print’!?! who’s a clark? lol

February 14, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Yes, I did buy a new keyboard. That means…. it’s ok to make mistakes because I have a delete key once again. lol no, seriously …. I can!

Today is, of course, Valentines Day and being a High Faux Holiday in the Ecclesiastical Calendar of Hallmark, I naturally thought to write a post. Trouble is, I’ve been writing this blog since 2009. I may have written myself out. (The one saving grace: since I’ve been writing about the Doctrine since July 2009, I’ve been doing little else, (‘if it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing.’) Maybe something has happened in my life in the intervening 5 or 6 years that I haven’t discovered yet! oh boy!)

Anyway. I need to work on the final Chapters of ‘Almira‘ so here’s a Post from 2012, titled:

“St Valentine, was he a roger or was he a clark…the Wakefield Doctrine deals with the important questions of the day.”*

“No, it’s ok! I’m a Saint.”

St Valentines is the worst, most contrived and cynical, gyno-centric guy-bait(ing), toy-with-the-emotions-of-innocent-bystanders, holiday on the whole damn calendar. Of course we are all familiar with the origin of the holiday and the internet is positively turgid with countless blogs, and stories and articles that tell us all about Hallmark and the candy industry and the rest of the sordid tale of this day in February. I will not try to compete with these other more skilled and capable Commentators ( and -torinis), as I do not have the time or the ‘writing chops’ to do such a ripe topic justice. Instead, let me tell you about my most lasting memory of Valentines Day.

Third grade, parochial school (St. Imelda) and a classroom of 25 students. The boys were required to wear blue shirts and blue ties with OLM printed on the front, fortunately ‘clip-on ties’ had been invented by this time, so easy-peasy; the girls wore the catholic school uniform, i.e. plaid skirts white shirt, socks. damn, little did I realize at that pre-pubescent time of my life how potent that little Roman Catholic Church fashion dictates would become for me and countless other men at a later stage of life.
So with much fanfare, Valentine’s Day arrives and we 9-year-old boys and girls are told that in the afternoon, before the end of the school day, we would have time to deliver our Valentine cards to each other. ( The day before we spent ‘Art Period’ making little baskets out of construction paper and taping them to the front of our desks. These would serve as ‘mailboxes’ for the cards we would receive the next day).
The thing was, the horrible twist to this introduction to the world of love, relationships and rejection was that, the time when class stopped and we were allowed to get up and deliver our little cards was not the end of the school day! It was right after lunch… and it lasted 15 or 20 minutes…as in ‘ now return to your desks and we will continue with the afternoon’ classes’. To sit for 90 minutes staring at the contents of the container on the front of my desk… I will leave it to the Reader to decide the emotional landscape of that afternoon on a February 14th.

Anyone out there not comfortable with finishing the story, or satisfied with their conclusion of this little tale, write us a Comment! ~~Regular Readers~~ Students of the Doctrine know that the rogers gave the biggest cards, the scotts received the most cards and the clarks delivered the most cards(….secretly without the recipient ever knowing who the really fun card came from.)

Now I better get back to work, before I get in trouble.

*edited for content and times**

** as in, ‘to account for the experience of (the) reality during which the events forming the subject of the post actually occurred and the effect of the passing time since, and it’s effect on the author.

ok, Back to Almira and the story of two girls growing up a lifetime apart but meeting once before parting.

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

-the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘a Post with no delete or backspace key available’

February 12, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

I was about to (type) that that’s the last of the error free text to be found in this Post today, but even though I’ve typed ‘Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and roger) more time than I can remember , the self-awareness that lurks to the right of ou us each minute of each waking day, ready to juggle our elbow or push our hands , (yeah, no backspace)

So I thought, a) I could simply not write anything on the computer today or 2) I could drive a half-way across the state of for the only store that sells the keyboard I need.

I think I’m c going with the ‘drive across the state’, though I need to spend a few minutes to understand if I’m overlooking…. Ha! I believe I just discovered the workaround!

Thank you for your patience in reading this (because, lets all be honest, we type with the anticipation/expectation of what we write being read by another person. We (at least those of us in the b;oosphere blogosphere) know that somewhere someone might read out our words our thoughts… in a way, is this not the sm same foundation upon which all of the major religions with their countless numbers of lives shaped and steered by beliefs in something that they can never prove?

(So yes, zoe, I guess I am saying that god is a blogger)

With a single key malfunctioning on my computer keyboard we have re-capitulated and re-framed the Questions of life that all of us struggle with consciously or otherwise :

is it better to think than not think? (after all, not typing out my thoughts here in the ‘sphere should not mean the end of my day/my life should it?
because I think it, or to be more direct, because I perceive the world around me, do I gain any value or benefit by sharing my experience ?
for that matter, why do I need a delete/backspace key in the first place… theory tells me that the life lived in real time, without try -overs and re-sets is the only reality when you think about it.
boy, do I need to get out into the real world more

lol ok end of this. I have my workaround (involves a remote access to my office computer* I will get ‘out there’** and do something useful and productive and (hopefully) beneficial to another lifeform.

**This Just In! No, it does not help to live by Proxy. The solution that I genuinely ** felt would work did not… for reasons that most of us will guess, it did not work. **

*jeez louise I do not want to think through the implications of my finding that to be an acceptable substitute to my problem today, do I?

**meaning I thought I felt I had a valid solution

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

“…too early to work” -the Wakefield Doctrine- “surely not too early to reprint an old Post!”

January 31, 2017 By clarkscottroger

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

Up way too early. Work and writing, neither wanted to go to bed last night. And, yeah, that wouldn’t be the worst thing, the worst thing was that both (work and writing) was just in my head. All of the bad and none of the good, oh well, what’cha gonna do?

Re-print an old Post?

Well, I don’t mind if I do! Not the same level of satisfaction as writing new content, but better than looking at ‘the Facebook’, which is getting kinda old (‘except for the Gravity Challenge! that’s a whole ‘nother thing. If you want to watch your weight and would like to do so in the company of some interesting people, come on over to the Gravity Challenge! We’d be glad to have you join us. Easy as can be. Every day we take a photo of the readout of our scale(s) and send it in, whereupon I post it to the aforementioned Facebook. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Oh, btw, we have what’s called Kristi’s Rule. It says, any portion of that readout you care to send in, works fine. The Challenge is about the change, not the number. So click here.)

reprint from a few years ago:

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of personality that you get to enjoy with your friends and them, before it gets all famous and mainstreamy and everyone will know about it)

Question: If your husband is a roger and you are a clark, is it true that they never accept how much you have changed over the years, since you first met?
Answer: Too true¹

(Welcome to ‘ya shoulda just asked Tuesday’! We will be presenting some common questions and the semi-comprehensive answers…along with a little commentary, mostly to let us get away with dividing the page into block quotes.’)

Question: My best friend is funny and fun to be with, but sometimes when we are around other people he gets like, mean even goes and picks on me. But this happens only with certain people, this big kid that (my friend) knows. What gives?

Answer: Chances are your friend is a scott and the person that, when they’re around, your friend starts acting mean?…well, that other person is a scott too, but they are what we call dominant (to your friend). So your friend, even though he is picking on you, doesn’t mean to hurt your friendship… it’s a pack² thing, you know?
Answer: jeez, if you say so,

(This question deals with the changing pack order (from the scottian perspective) and it’s effects on the behavior of a scott. Note: this question (and by implication, the experience cited), will most likely be posed by a clark. Do you know why that should be?)

Question: My fiancée and I are getting close to the Big Day. When we first got engaged, we both agreed to keep the ceremony and everything on the quiet, low-key side, but lately, ( the wedding is in 3 months), she has been talking more to her sisters and some of her old friends and it seems like the guest list is getting bigger and bigger. What gives?

Answer: She is probably a roger. Forget about changing her mind. It means a lot to her, in a way that you will never understand. So relax! Sneak a couple of your friends that she might not have approved when the guest list was small, she probably won’t even notice now, and if she does make an issue of it, say the following to her (word for word): “I understand how important family is to you now. And even though I am not close to my family, you have shown me that my feelings³ of friendship with (fill in the names of you friends) make them like family. Won’t you let my family join your family …darling?”

(And there are those who would say, ‘Hey Wakefield Doctrinaires! Sure you have a uniquely clever take on personality types, but what about practical applications? Huh, what about those?’ Well, here ya go! Who cannot not identify with this situation? …not counting the rogers, of course!)

Question: My boss is nice enough, but it seems like he tries too hard to be, like my friend or something! Every day it is ‘how are you doing?’, “is there anything I can do to make your job easier?” I mean, all the time! I can’t get any work done when he is in the office, he is always offering to ‘help’! I might be able to deal with this, except that every time I do get some work done that he needs to sign off on, he always finds fault! And if I come up with something on my own initiative (he likes to say that he wants me to try to ‘think outside the box’) he is either totally negative or acts like he is amazed that I actually did it myself! Should I quite my job?
Answer: Probably.⁴

(This Question deals with a scenario that is all too common. And, although we do not propose that all bosses are rogers, we will say this, ‘If your boss is a scott you have: a) a good time everyday up until the day he decides that it is time to change careers or b) a lead pipe cinch of a sexual harassment lawsuit, so the day you get tired of her shenanigans, ‘it’s sayonara, see ya in court’
If your boss is a clark, then we know the following: a) if your clarklike boss is female then her boss is a roger, if your clarklike boss is male then his boss is a scott! and b) they (clarks) make great bosses, will stick up for you totally against all opponents, but jeez! enough with the leadership by consensus! Get a set, yo.

That music referenced in the Title of today’s Post? Totally weird. I’m sitting and watching TV and a commercial comes on and before I can hit ‘MUTE’ I hear the music in the background (of the commercial) and I’m off to the great and omnicient google… and here we are

1) rogers are about consistency, if they are about anything at all! The worldview of the herd (rogers) maintains that history, tradition, continuity…consistency is of the greatest good! The worldview is also one in which the individual’s relationship with the world-at-large manifests primarily in emotional terms. So when a (lasting) relationship forms, the details of ‘the other’ person are important, in a sense, manifesting the emotional investment. So, as time goes by, even though people change and grow and develop, the roger will still insist on seeing the ‘original person’

2) scotts, in the initial behavioral metaphor: like pack animals, i.e. wolves, dogs, lions and such. The social ranking in the pack is one of simple dominance, an alpha at ‘the top’ and everyone else in order of strength/prowess/capability downward from there. It is a primary characteristic of the scottian personality type to establish ranking when entering a new (social ) environment. Literally going from person to person, figuratively pushing them on the shoulder in order to establish ranking

3) emotions! always play the emotion-card when dealing with rogers!

4) you could try to…nah, don’t even bother. Maybe if you got to the Doctrine sooner, you might have learned enough to invoke your own rogerian aspect to re-configure your work relationship… but too hard, too frustrating, easier to get another job. But then again, most bosses/middle managers/supervisors/Principals are rogers! so maybe you should be asking about the Wakefield Doctrine School of Self-Improving Oneself…school