the Wakefield Doctrine

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

If you are of a certain age, you will recognize this person… a high jumper named Dick Fosbury who changed his sport in as fundamental a manner as possible. (Look him up)

Why, yes, yes we do.

So, here’s what you do today. When you interact with a person, take a second, in that vast gulf of time, between sentences* and consider the person before you:

1. do they seem to be too full of energy (wild, spinning-top energy, not deep-in-the-heart-of-the-hyrdo-electric-plant energy), are they impulsively friendly, carelessly helpful and just a touch…. scary?  Try: scott
2. are you at ease, are they comfortable to talk to, do they ask questions, (related to the topic at hand), that not only are pertinent, but logical (anyone can ask, ‘did you cook for yourself last night’…. but some, upon gaining an assent, will request the list of ingredients, types of spices, brand of cookware, mood-level-while-working-to-prepare and ultimately, whether you would be happy to do it all again)…. go ahead and just put a ‘roger‘ next to that person’s face (metaphorically, of course… unless you’re a scott lol)
3. you’re sure they’re there, they were just a minute ago, they seem sincere, well-meaning and quite well-informed… what you can understand…. there’s a distant look to their eyes and hunch to their posture and a thing that makes them seem always just getting back from somewhere else… clark

OK, now you’re ready to apply the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine.

The main thing to keep in mind, is that the Wakefield Doctrine is based on the idea that we all experience the world on a personal level. And, in this realm of personal reality, there are three characteristic ‘worlds’; the world of the Outsider(clarks), the planet of the Predators(scotts) and the life of the Herd Member(rogers). Lets use a common situation to illustrate this very central point,

You and I are sitting in a nice restaurant, it’s mid-afternoon, so the Lunch Hour Rush is over and the Evening has a couple of hours before putting in an appearance, our waiter/waitress** come(s) to our table and says, “Are you two ready to order?”

If you are a scott or a roger, what you will be experiencing will be different from what I experience. Same restaurant, same waiter/waitress way, very different personal reality…. so ask yourself,  how would a reasonable person living in a world characterized as that of Predator and Prey, or a normal person react to a waitress/waiter when the world is, by nature, an orderly and understandable place? Because remember, this is not your typical personality theory, where they, like, say or imply, “you are prone to… you have a tendency… your preferences are such and such”. Those are all too common attempts to attribute ‘behavior to the type’, as if they were issued along with your personality (“Hey! clark personality types!!! line up here, here’s ya traits and tendencies, I gots your mumbling and putting your hands to your mouth, and here’s your pre-set choices in fashions all ready: girls? mix and match, gender obfuscation is the name of your game, guys? black is good….”)

The Wakefield Doctrine is different. You have the personality traits that you have, because they are the strategies that you’ve found most successful as you grow from tiny child, fully engaged in the effort to cope with and try(ing) to succeed in a world in which you are the Outsider or you are a Predator or, a Herd Member.

Simple. Right?

HEY!  Chapter 15 is on the newsstands everwhere!  So go read it and tell me if you’re enjoying it. (I’m always curious about who a person’s favorite characters are… don’t be shy  tell who you like the most and who you would like to trip as they walk by!)

* clarks will understand this, if you are not a clark and you understand this, thank your secondary clarklike aspect.  If you insist, a fuller explanation…roger one evening, many years ago, I was in a discussion with a fair-sized group of people, (meaning not on a date or with a friend or two), in any event, we’re all sitting around and the topic centers on the challenges inherent in verbal communication, whether intimate or public, so I figure I should try and contribute to the pool of ideas that was forming (yeah, a lot of rogers there), so, in the next pause, (somewhere between ‘intentional lies and being misunderstood’), I said, “You know, my problem in conversations usually is about what to do with all that time between sentences”   pins hit the floor like anvils off a factory roof.  fun times!

**the Wakefield Doctrine is gender neutral, which is to say, a female scott and a male scott (and rogers and clarks, of course) are relating themselves to the world around them the same way…. their manner of behavior(s) may differ but the similarities totally out-weigh any differences observed. The Doctrine is about how human beings relate themselves to the world around them, not how men or women…. for that matter, lets just remember, this Doctrine is also culture and age neutral.