self-development | the Wakefield Doctrine

Memoir Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 5, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

Still haven’t settled on a title/label/subtitle for this series. (First, Second and Third)

(We have found, mostly through writing RePrint Mondays that a ‘previously on…’ is an enormous help in this type of blogging. Not, as you might think, tho’ in turn, not totally incorrectly, simply put: to remember the narrative that preceded the current post* is sufficient, however, to read the actual text is conducive and, therefore more to the mood/spirit/’yeah! that’s what I was going for’.)

previously on…

Will not go into the full Wakefield Doctrine origin story. It’s: Here. We’re making reference to it today only because this post is reminding us of how unlikely it is to have written more than 2,913 posts and received in excess of 32,000 comments!¹

But that’s not important right now.²

The point that is elbowing it’s way to the topic section of this week’s Memoir post is: there is no way I would have been capable of writing this blog without some serious serendipity.

But, with the idea that today a new Reader might be standing in the upper back of the room (stadium-slant auditorium of course. hey, it’s our fantasy) lets wrap up this week’s train wreck with:

The thing about clarks that is both wonderful and maybe a little sad is that we find that discovering novelty in understanding an otherwise, mostly, incomprehensible world as being fun. Fun in the sense of a five-year-old opens a Christmas present. Promise. Excitement. Satisfaction. All drive the Outsider to smile when encountering either a novel aspect of the world or find ourselves down a path we had not consciously intended to follow. Hence the predilection for quantum story telling (i.e. we forget or willfully neglect the fact that our listeners have not encountered all the facts). And…and! the ease with which we go all neologism on spelling and data and facts. To the point of this paragraph: clarks have a lack of concern about one thing: our commitment to curiosity.

The ‘little sad’ aspect of this, we’ll leave for another Tuesday.

* my dear sweet god! is that the level of entanglement inherent in the literal representation of my writer’s thought process?!?! ba’kha Yeshua** (John 11:35)

** and there it is! the purpose of seemingly random thoughts thrown at an LCD blackboard! to remind ourselfs of a particular stream-of-thought in a section of a river with no name (aka ‘Where we were trying to go with this post’)

ok, being raised with proper blogger manners, half of the 32k would be my replies to comments. that still leaves 17k*** of real people. So, lets consider if it’s possible for all 15,000 to be ‘I want the time you stole with that post that made no sense whatever, I want it back!!’ comments. lets do the division. Round up for the math 3,000 posts divided by 16,000 comments ….
Airplane! of course.

*** who said that a clark’s propensity for neologisms was limited to words? (malapmath might be the proper term for deliberate incorrect math and stuff. sure let’s go with that)

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

RePrint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 4, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

As to the thought, ‘What more is there to say about a theory of personality that has three types and is predicated on (one’s) relationship with the world around them?’

Not so much more information, as with better style. Rather than recitation of data, (an ongoing) demonstration of effects and consequences in the real world.

In other words, the actual topic of pretty much every Wakefield Doctrine post is on any given day, which at the moment would be Monday, we ask: how does this day of the week/that particular occupation/going to the gas station/trying to get ‘A’s in school or find love in a relationship, manifest in the reality of the Outsider (clarks), the world of the Predator (scotts) and the life of the Herd Member (rogers)?

This topic, i.e. reprint posts came up on the call-in show this weekend past. The Why and (the) is it an irredeemable fault or, at least, a less than.

Our position was, in the context of RePrint Monday, was that it was like a prompt, a warm-up, if you will. Not to give away too much insight into the early years, gots to save something for the next installment of our weekly series: ‘عمر خیّام Tuesdays’ * ¹ ‘Hey!!’ (Last week’s installment: Here)

Believe it or not, three hundred fity words in and we’s still gonna post a RePrint post.

Come back tomorrow! Subscribe or like or, better yet, tell someone you encounter in your day today to come here and read and such.

sun don’t shine, the gods look down in anger

December 3, 2009

(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)……Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the, ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends, thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.

… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…

(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)

So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!

(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)

(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)

Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.

If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures, (clarks, scotts and rogers), will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And, despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

* ¹ ‘Hey!! lol we apologize to any New Reader who might be a roger with a secondary clarklike aspect on a razor’s balance between getting mad and clicking away or staying to see this if Doctrine thing might not be kinda fun. The clarklike autosome that contains the code for ‘ain’t no reference too obscure that it can’t be fun! should never, ever be underestimated as to the effect it exerts in the life of an Outsider. (The reference to Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī** will pay off in future Tuesday posts.)

** lighten up… like you didn’t see that coming? we’re just messin’ with any rogers in the Readerverse***

*** damn right we’re claiming that word! Unless someone (most likely another clark) has already coined the term.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology Tagged With: personality types, relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 2, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Doctrine’s weekly contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT).

Established by Lizzi R in the late 19th C. (aka ‘Someday kids will thank us for wearing so many articles of barely-functional clothing. That and laying the groundwork for steampunk‘ Era) Toiling under the flickering illumination of a glass, brass and gas lamp, she wrote the first blogpost of what initially was to be ‘Fifty Things of Thankful (FiToT). Her descendants thank their choice of deities that the number required on a list was reduced. In no small part due to the unfortunate acronym that would have resulted.

Below is our list of less than Fity things.

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) writing (samples from two bloghops: the Six Sentence Story and the Unicorn Challenge

5) geography (as in being in easy driving distance to the ocean)

6) technology that has developed to the point of making Grat #7 possible.

7) the beach:

8) something, something

9) at the top of this week’s post, one of our favorite photos of Ola (‘big smile, large teeth‘)

10) Secret Rule 1.3

music vids

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

drei…dri…fff Freiday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 1, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

Hey, I know! What the hell are we doing here this week when we participated just last Friday?!?!

(New Reader: the Doctrine has been joining jenne and ceayr and their band of mutants on an every-other-week basis. This, today, is quite out of the ordinary. Which is a condition you, if you continue to frequent this here blog here, will see as the rule rather than the exception. In any event, here we are now…)

This is a photo prompt bloghop. Our hosts provide a different pitcha each Friday and invite people to write a story. The hook, besides the TAT-like image to start us off, is a two hundred fity (250) word limit. It’s challenging and it’s fun. So click on the Unicorn Challenge and, at very least enjoy the wonderful imagination and mad story-telling skills of the writers there. And, as long as you’re there… feel free to link your own story.

“I don’t understand why they have to be kept refrigerated. It’s not like when we put them on, the first of each month, there’s a limit to the conditions in which our new Persona will function. I mean, isn’t that the idea, having a different body to show that, deep inside, we’re all the same?”

“Well, dear, it’s a little more involved than that. When you’re older, your Persona will have additional features besides height or weight or race or ethnicity.” The woman in the doorway looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Geez, Ma, I’m not a kid anymore, I’m in the sixth grade. We’ve a class on the Rules of Equitable Persona. The teacher told us about how, after the Down-Under Insurrection ended with the capture of Jacquier-the-Terrible, the Department of Self-Equality spent billions on the technology; the UN passed the law that each month we get a new body and can be the person they… we always wanted to be. No more racism or discrimination.”

“What?” Stepping from the shower, the boy stood at the State-mandated blue persona transference cabinet and saw the look on his mother’s face.

“About those ‘isms. When you get to seventh grade, there’ll be a special class of physical body added to the system. It’s one to deal with the first and Original ‘isms’. The law limits talking to young people about it until a certain age. But as you get older, you might hear people mention the #MeToo model Persona.”

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

Mundae- Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

November 27, 2023 By clarkscottroger

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

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Why don’t we hold that thought this early Monday morning, for surely we’ve done the above variation-on-a-day-of-the-week post title before,

But that’s not important now.

What is important is finding an old post that will jumpstart our head as we close out the Month (November-in-Oceania motto: ‘Hey man, sorry to hear about you and your old lady. Sure, you can crash here for while. At least until you can get back on your feet.)

The basics still apply. The Wakefield Doctrine is an alternate perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up. As such, it offers both a tool for self-improvement and a diversion capable of providing amusement, if not outright fun.

You know how, at least as offered in the popular science press, the Holy Grail of theoretical physics is the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity? A Grand Unified Theory of Everything? The Doctrine is in a similar space. For us it is the bridging of ‘personal reality’ and ‘character of (our) relationship with the world around us and the people who make it up (aka PR vs CORwTWRUatPWMiU).

When we started writing this blog, the concept of ‘personal reality’ was the most accessible and it conveyed the ‘inevitability’ of the characteristic behavior of the three predominant worldviews (clarks/Outsiders, scotts/Predators and rogers/Herd Members). This was important because the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that how we act (and react) is as much personal whim/outrageous fortune/vindictive calculation as many of the other, more popular personality theories would have you believe. (We once observed, early in these pages, that the many theories of personalty, at least the type that lend themselves to public domain images and popular song lyrics, are basically, ‘mirror-shaped clubs’. “Oh, honey! Come take this online survey about what kind of person you are. They have you down to a ‘T’!”

While still useful, the personal reality model, has been augmented by the relationship theory (‘how we relate ourselfs to the world around and the people who make it up’). This latter view allows some Readers to hurdle the imagination threshold.

…

Non-allegorical Monday* the Wakefield Doctrine ( it’s so simple, even your spouse could get it**)

March 4, 2013

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

The Wakefield Doctrine is a way to understand the behavior of people. It is a perspective that allows you to know more about the other person than they know about themselves. It is a tool with which you can overcome bad habits and self-defeating behavior. And it, (this Wakefield Doctrine), is fun. Simple to understand for those people with innate curiosity and intellectual confidence, the Wakefield Doctrine lets you see the world from a different angle, an angle from which personality types are discernible without the need to ask questions, get the other person to fill out a survey and totally without the need to employ any math involving chi square distribution or standard deviations.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that all people are born with the potential to relate themselves to the world in one of three characteristic ways, as an Outsider (clarks), as a Predator (scotts) or as a Member of the Herd (rogers). It is (the Wakefield Doctrine maintains) the character of this relationship that produces what is commonly referred to as personality or personality type. This is not overly unique in the world of personality theories. What is unique, is that the Wakefield Doctrine insists that not only do people relate themselves to the world in these three characteristic ways, but the world for them does, in fact, reflect the qualities implied by the relationship.
Plainly put, we live in what can only be described as a personal reality. This is not to imply anything overly mystical, magical or fantastic. Trees do not talk (unless we are willing to listen), prey do not yearn to be brought down (unless we abandon our reason) and the world is not quantifiable nor is it governed by Rules that we alone are able to appreciate (unless we are rogers).
This aspect of the Wakefield Doctrine that includes the existence or personal realities is the difficult part for approximately 2/3s of the people who come across this blog. They, (these 2/3s), are not able to imagine (for the sake of experiment) that everyone they know is experiencing a reality that is different (this difference ranging from barely noticeable to oh-my-god) from what they believe is the only real reality. They might try to understand the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine (very likely to succeed) and they might even persist in trying to identify people by their personality types (many of them get it, sort of) but they rarely ever get to experience the primary benefit of this approach to understanding the people in their lives. They never get it enough to understand that everyone they encounter in the course of the day (today!) is acting in an entirely appropriate manner, consistent with the world as they are experiencing it.
(We call these personal realities, ‘worldviews’ ).

Well this blog is simply not for them.

It is for you.

(I mean, seriously, if you have read this far into this Post, then I will say, without fear of contradiction, that you have the qualities that are required to find this thing useful and fun. And if you have any question about that happening, write a Comment and your specific question will be answered.)

The three personal realities are referred to as:

clarks (the Outsider)…the most likely to immediately understand the Wakefield Doctrine and the most likely to be willing to learn about and the one (of the three) who will benefit the most

scotts (the Predator)… the third most likely to understand the Wakefield Doctrine and the most likely to see the immediate benefits (lets call that the ‘advantages’ for this personality type)

rogers (the Member of the Herd)… the second most likely to understand the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine and the most likely to pretend to employ the tools for themselves

Well, that wraps up ‘non-allegorical’ Monday.