self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

September 22, 2026 By clarkscottroger 5 Comments

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

(To continue with our classroom metaphor…)

AP Level Wakefield Doctrine (“surely each of the three predominant worldviews are not saints/saintinae, right?”)

Correct.

We, as your Curator, would be remiss in our duty to disclose the dark side along with (“Are those the three?? I wanna be a….”) the more gooder side of human personality and social interactioning.

clarks are heartless, scotts are cruel and rogers are mean

Now that your individual inner critics have had a moment to shriek it’s outrage (purely on your behalf, of course) let’s say this:

“To know others is knowledge; to know oneself is wisdom” Lao Tzu (ish)

Why do we write such seemingly negative (and hopefully) provocative assertions?

For fun and engagement.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

September 5, 2026 By clarkscottroger

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

Our first dog, Ola. She was the epitome of the German Shepherd breed. Large teeth, welcoming smile.

The is the Wakefield Doctrine’s weekly contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. Each week those so inclined gather (in a blog-linkatory-way) and share lists of the people, places, things and events that merit inclusion in such a list.

It’s good exercise. Heart/Spiritualistically speaking, that is.

Our List for this week is:

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

5) so, a week ago we told the story of the rock and in the course of it mentioned granite. Hostinae cai followed up asking if granite was used in the construction of our house. We said no but promised to find and photorize some residences that did use granite.

Note: for all you geophiles out there, the photo below was taken in the community (actually more a fire district/enclave) of Shelter Harbor in Westerly, RI

6) * someone. but maybe it was in a comment in their own posts. Likely suspects: Misky, Reelika, Chris (though I wouldn’t put it past Mimi to mention bookcases.) In any event, please proceed back to the Present and Grat #7)

7) ok, this is not funny… serially. someone in a comment (somewhere)* mentioned ‘Bookshelves’. So, naturally, our first thought was ‘Hey! What a great Grat!’ (Go back to Grat #6… hey, nowhere in the Book of Secret Rules, aka the Secret Book of Rules does it say linear causality most be respected) So say what you will about grand books and fiction about the tragedy of aging such as Cervantes’s ‘Don Quixote‘ or cinematic delving into the effects of time on culture and the ordinary as inspired by great books like HG Well’s ‘The Time Machine’.

Once the center of our everyday homelife, at minimum serving as jealous guardians bracketing our ‘tele-vis-shun’ the bookcases in our home, have now been relegated to… the laundry room, (didn’t see that coming Mr.-451-Farenheit-Bradbury’ didja?). Below is one of our two remaining bookcases. The five others, required to hold our four-hundred forty-four other books is pictured in Grat #9 (We mean, serially, who doesn’t hear Ecclesiastes 3:6 – ‘A time to keep, and a time to throw away.’ (Not stepping into your turf, Frank, but had an earworm of ‘the Byrds’ totally sneak in the room between typety-types.)

8) something, something

9) our new Ba’al:

10) Secret Rule 1.3

music vids

*gotta comment here. Sure it was among the first ‘music videos’ (no, not video as we know it today) but still! They’re the fricken Beatles and no one thought to control access to the filming session?!?! More than once, if you pay attention to the background (through the hedges), you can see people walking by and …and! around minute 01:00 you can see the guitar cases they forgot to move out of the shot. Still, for some of us, sure takes ya back, no?

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 15, 2026 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s weekly contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. Running continuously now for over 79 years, this grat hop is one of the easiest ways to practice the cultivation of gratitude as a… self-development thing. Whatever. (As the most aggravating and annoying ‘wise man quote’ would have you believe: ‘If you have to ask the question, you wouldn’t understand the answer’.

For this week, our Ten Things of Thankful for us are as follows:

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) Speaking of prehistoric lifeforms! No, not your Humble Narrator. We’re talking turtles. (as opposed to tortoises as Lady Manila featured in her TToT last week,)… while doing our video of Dinosaur Alley we noticed a number of turtles, all Busby Berkeley* on a fallen tree. But without the sequined bathing caps.

5) New landscape project! A Maginot Line with the ambition to hold back very aggressive ground vines (photo). (Let’s agree to ignore the historically established weakness in this approach to resisting a more persistent force.) (See: Sand Castles: building against nature. op. cit.)

6) something, something

7) video of Dinosaur Alley (one of the paths down to the pond)

8) Friday is Movie Night. P said, “…maybe a romantic movie.” We said, “Sure!” ‘Warm Bodies‘

9) reasonably heated atmosphere for the week past, high 80’s

10) Secret Rule 1.3

* no! wait, you should be so grateful that you need to look-up ‘Busby Berkeley’ to appreciate our clever reference. getting old isn’t merely understanding the meaning of life, sometimes it’s making ‘young’ people laugh. (Like Floggie Rogers who used to stick out his dentures. Our five-year-old self, growing up on Martha’s Vineyard found that the height of humor.

music

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, self-improvement, Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 12, 2026 By clarkscottroger

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

From Reader Frank, the following:

Here is a question that has been bothering me. Suppose we have the typical situation of knight, damsel and dragon. Which one of these is the clark, scott or roger? I kind of think the knight would have to be a scott, but I don’t know about the other two. Of course, the dragon could also be a scott. Even the damsel.

‘even the damsel‘

we know you’ve been trying to find a way to sneak up on that angle! lol

damn! lost our train of thought… and the ticket and a cab-ride home.

Let’s try a quick SOC(ish) approach.

Now, if our faithful correspondent is, in his Comment, thinking fairy tales and such, the ground is quite simple.

Pied Piper of Hamlin:

(the) Piper: scott

(the) Children: clarks

(the) Townspeople: rogers

Little Red Riding Hood:

(the) Wolf: scott

(the) Grandma: clark

Little Red Riding Hood: roger

The Garden of Eden:

(the) Serpent: scott

Eve: clark

Adam: roger

Does it stop with these, above deconstructions? “mais non bien sûr que non!”

What the question (from our Reader) asks is: in the context of there being a knight, a damsel and a dragon are each of these always going to be a scott, a clark and a roger, or what?

The Answer: depends on one’s definition of: a knight, a distressed damsel and a fire-breathing dragon. Clearly (from this ‘Answer’) we differ with our Interlocutor.

We, on first blush, think of:

a knight (roger) as a part of a medieval culture who is in the minority/exceptional, owes his (take note of gender) rank and privilege to a powerful figure (remember ‘referential authority’ a hallmark of the rogerian worldview) and acts on behalf of the establishment.
a damsel (clark) while of a lesser status than everyone else in the context, is exceptional in that she perseveres and, in fact, commands attention of both the dragon (who doesn’t simply eat her and move on to the next meal) and the knight (by proxy the authority figure, which in this cultural meme is a king or some other exceptionally powerful male), she is, in the context of this story, commanding the attention of all while apparently powerless and passive
the dragon (scott) just trying to live, gotta eat…usually predates the kingdom and power structure of the interloping culture

questions?

the value of such exercises? to learn the characteristic relationships (with the world) that are referred to as Outsider (clark), Predator (scott) and Herd Member (roger) and in the process better understanding (at least from a different perspective) of ourselfs.

thanks, Frank!

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

August 1, 2026 By clarkscottroger

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

this week our list (of Grats) includes:

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine ’cause sine qua non, binyons, sine qua non

4) Quick Before (two months in the past) and After (an hour ago) landscapifying

5) Phyllis’ tomatoes!* (she had the excellent idea of having a gardenette up on the deck, where the deers and rabbits would have to work for their free food.)