self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 23, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

Tuesday.

Surely this is the most inviting(-sounding) Day of the Week.

Not the lump of Silly Putty to the forehead that Monday is.

Wednesday tries, but in attempting to appeal to too wide an audience, fails like a soufflé baked on a roller coaster, (“Here it comes…look at it rise!!!! What!?! oh no!!)

(Thursday … surely, Thursday is the fort built in the back corner of your parent’s clothes closet when you were six; the spirit of Thursday never dies, be it in school, (the school week is over tomorrow, why not drink and party all night?) or work life.

Friday and Saturday? Way beyond the scope of this post.

One might even say, Tuesdays are the most clarklike days of the week. Full of promise, yet containing enough in the way of work, duties and responsibilities to avoid any appearance of being besotted by hope or recklessly caught up in the sense of common effort in our day-to-day world, like the teenager convinced (and pressured and seduced into) stealing the parent’s car or going out will lesser-known friends into a part of the night in which risk becomes an intoxicant and running along the edge of the cliff seems like the only thing to do, recently converted to the dream of living for the moment.

(The critical element of this dream, attractive to adolescents of all ages, is that the dream is not a path along which we run, if we dare, leading us to a place we hope to be ourselves. ‘Ourselves’ is a relationship not a place, or even a state of mind. The product of any effort to improve ourselves begins with appreciating how we relate ourselves to the world around us. Before, even, we examine how we relate (and otherwise interact) with the world around us.)

Whoa! HEav vee!

Hey, you know how, after you’ve eaten all the bananas from the milk lake of Rice Krispies and there’s nothing left but a bunch of milk-logged, formerly crisp-and-airy-rice-things? And, being a near adult, you can’t just dump the mess down the sink, so you dutifully spoon the globs of cereal into your mouth, (resisting the unfortunate visual of white blood cells bumper-car racing through blood vessels to hurl themselves at the infection site), when your spoon hits something on the bottom of the bowl. One last slice of sugar encrusted banana.

Makes it all worthwhile, am I right?

(Just in case it doesn’t, here’s a reprint post)

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

So why is it that, of the three personality types, clarks look upon Tuesday as, perhaps, the best of all days of the week? Simple. The weekend-workweek transition day (Monday) has been survived, the focus on achieved (or not) progress day (Wednesday) has not yet occurred and the deceptively desirable end-of-workweek day (Friday) is still a distant dream.

Tuesday is all about optimism and promise. And clarks, well, clarks are nothing if not the embodiment of promise.* No, in our brief discussion this morning, ‘promise’ is decidedly a noun. And the context is social context-free! It is not about breaking a promise, making a promise, promising to better. It (the promise of a clark) is the potential… for (totally fill in the blank).

If anything, the promise inherent in the worldview of a clark is the event horizon of their existence. whoah! (whoah, indeed!) Damn, as often happens, I’ve stumbled into a topic that, like a quiet talk and a cup of coffee at the kitchen counter, the coming day still held back by the castellation in bleached oak of the cabinets bracketing the sink, the outside wall falls into the yard and the world yaws open, ever hungry for human time.

lol

Cliff Notes version of my tantalizing allusion: “…the promise inherent in the worldview of a clark is the event horizon of their existence.” clarks are always searching for something. Being of a rational bent (clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel), the sought-after thing manifests as knowledge/information. clarks are the insatiably curious of the three. The ‘something’ clarks seek is the thing that everyone around them appear to know already and, by tragic miscalculation, clarks assume is the knowledge that makes them, (scotts and rogers) real people. They must have been absent that day, when growing up and being taught about life, ya know. In any event, that is the singularity, the conviction that if they acquire more information, they might discover the secret and become a part of.** Like the nearly-all powerful black hole, we cannot see it directly and so are left with the edge of endless appetite, like golem with a question mark impressed upon our foreheads.

* the natural tendency here is to interpret the word ‘promise’ as a verb, which totally changes the spin. That kind of promise is strictly of the domain of the real people, the scotts and the rogers. (“Hey, a promise is a promise, so get some clothes on an we’ll catch some breakfast” “Yeah, but you promised. I heard you promise. Everyone heard you promise. How can you do such a thing?“)

** super-brief Doctrine for New Readers: unlike most of the other personality theories and schema, the Doctrine does not rely on quizzes and surveys, questions about favorite colours or food, likes and dislikes, in order to establish which category a person falls into. This is because, from our viewpoint, our personality ‘types’ are simply the characteristically distinct style of dealing with life, given the world we are experiencing. Ex: I grew up in the reality of the ‘the Outsider’ and I learned and developed the style of interacting that would best advantage me in that context. My tendency to mumble, have poor posture, make creatively eccentric fashion choices, be funny (provided you’re close enough to hear me) and exhibit a sporadic yet wildly original creativity is because that is what is successful when contending with the world as I experience it. For scotts and for rogers, the same applies. Start out as a little baby one in the world of the Predator and I betcha you develop a predilection for quick reflexes, act-before-being-acted-up real fast. It’s about what strategies are appropriate to the character of the world you grow up in, you know, what kind of likes and dislikes, favorite colours or food that increase the odds that you survive and thrive today.

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 20, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

You’re cordially invited to join the Wakefield Doctrine’s weakly practice of the development and cultivation of the state of gratitude (lat. esse sui gratacious “I think, so I might very well feel.“)

Established under a King’s Grant (with subsidiary support provided by a grant from the New Worcestershire-on-Rye Chamber of Commerce and contributions from the patrons of ‘the Pig ‘n Bicycle Pub’) in January 2011 (the Winter of Discomforte) Lizzi built well, see as we can say:

Thanks to Dyanne the (fifteenth in the line of Hostinae Immaculati), for providing the links and the velvet hand (in the iron glove) that makes this all possible, if not probable.

We, our ownselfs, we’d like to crank up the Wayback Machine and take a trip back in time.

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) serial stories: Ian Devereaux’s ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘ and, from Tales from the Order of Lilith, ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘

5) 20 Minute Real Estate Briefing Hey! Still time to sign up and follow, before we get the audio working*

6) Six Sentence Story Sure, anyone can write War and Peace when there’s no limit on page count, but lets see what Leo can do with Six Sentences (hell, we’ll even throw in a box of semicolons)

7) this is coming to you early Saturday, will return with surely the bestest of all Grat Items.

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE

9) something, something

10) Secret Rule 1.3 ’cause what kinda bloghop would this be, if’n we didn’t have a Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules)?

music

https://youtu.be/_JQATJDoPU0

* kinda funny, this last Wednesday’s Briefing was done as mime…. lol

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

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 19, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is one of those posts.

There was a time, a more fertile time, when posts would spring into life at the slightest provocation. (I’ll spare you the attempt at literary, mythological allusions that would start with Athena and continue down through the ages. I will use one image at the top and, how to say, we’ll move on with the post.)

The song is the thing.

Whole series of Wakefield Doctrine posts have come into existence because of a few notes of a song rooted in our past.

clarks are funny about the past.

Not, ‘ha ha’ funny. More “Please continue, but do you mind if some of my colleagues join us? There is much to what you have written that is a matter of concern.”

While Ken Burns is one of the patron saints of the world of the Herd Members, it is too easy to think, “I get it, rogers are the historians of the three predominant worldviews.”

almost.

Fortunately, the Everything Rule asserts its non-judgmental presence to remind us that ‘Everyone does everything, at one time or another‘. Meaning, of course, that nothing in life, reality or our thoughts is of exclusive domain of one and not ‘the other two’ personality types here at the Wakefield Doctrine.

The classic example is found in occupations. scotts are, by virtue of their relationship to the world around them, in possession of qualities that sync very well with the requirements of being an effective police officer. They, (scotts), love to chase things that are fleeing, enjoy rapid motion, (car, running, jumping from one horse to another) and loud noises. They, (scotts), love the chase. As a bonus, being able to catch and release the prey/felon/random driver on the interstate, means their days will always be fulfilling.

While knowledge of the past is an activity manifested in clarks, scotts and rogers, the ‘reason’ and ‘nature’ of acquiring this knowledge varies among the three. And, not surprisingly, this variation reflects the world as experienced by the: Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) and the Herd Member(rogers)

… but I go on and on. Permit me to play you a song that, if you’re of sufficient tenure on the planet may be familiar. That said, the echoes, (intellectual and emotional), will be as different as you from me. Yet, without the slightest diminution of the sudden inner silence that cues as does the music, when the past moves up on your right, an usher with a red-coned flashlight, invites you to take a seat in a theatre full of once-familiar faces.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: psychology of personality, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 15, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

This is a Doctrine.*

The Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not them.

The Wakefield Doctrine is neither an Answer nor is it an organized set of beliefs.

The Wakefield Doctrine is not a club-shaped mirror to use on those around or on your-own-self.

The Wakefield Doctrine does not have categories, placement in which is earned, forced, required or held up as a reward, based on a score, numerical, rhetorical or otherwise expressed.

The Wakefield Doctrine does not predict your future, however, if properly employed, will give you the edge on knowing what the other person is gonna do.

The Wakefield Doctrine does not confer power over others, though it might offer an enhanced access to your own.

The Wakefield Doctrine is an additional perspective on our respective lives, the world around us and the people who make it up.

The essential premise of the Wakefield Doctrine is that we are born with the capacity to experience life in one of three ways, (aka perspectives), and that, at a very early age, we settle into one, (and only one), of these three personal realities; having done this, (being still infants of world-forming-age), we grow and mature and develop our social strategies and relationships with the world on the basis of the one characteristic reality we find our selfs in:

the reality of the Outsider(clarks)
the world of the Predator(scotts)
the life of the Herd Member(rogers)

While we all settle into one, (and only one), of the three personal realities, (aka predominant worldviews), we never lose the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two’. This potential can be active or inert, powerful or weak; it can color the view of the world in subtle, barely-noticeable shades, or it can be sleeping awaiting a rude awakening.

While each of the three predominant worldviews might be referred to as a personalty type, they are not categories into which an individual is assigned on the basis of the score; it is not a reflection of responses to a description generated by another person. The personality types, (the aforementioned, clarks, scotts and rogers), are simply the individual’s best efforts to develop a style and a manner that allows them to best survive, (and thrive), the world as they are experiencing it.

The personal reality that one experiences, (when referring to predominant worldviews), is real. As real as it needs to be to qualify as reality**.

As an additional perspective on the world and the people who make it up, the Wakefield Doctrine affords me an opportunity to better appreciate how I relate myself to the world around me***.

* yeah, the old Vince Lombardi trope

** if I choose to shout ‘Fire!‘ in a crowded theater or whisper ‘I love you‘ in a darkened bedroom, does it matter that the context from which my very real and, quite objective actions were derived, existed only in my mind (and heart and imagination)?

*** that was not, ‘how I relate to the world around me’ it was, ‘how I relate myself to the world around me’. Huge difference.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, psychology of personality, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, three personality types, Understanding Human Behavior

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 10, 2021 By clarkscottroger

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

Quick, little, Doctrine post for a Wednesday morning.

We have a question from a New Reader*,

“I can see how those personality types seem to fit the people I know. I’m impressed by how, testing the type, (against a ‘real’ person), using only a few of the characteristics of, what do you call it… you know, instead of personality types…. oh yeah! predominant worldviews. How, if I take a couple of the primary indicators and apply it to someone, the rest totally fits. Pretty impressive.

That said, besides knowing that if a person I know will only ride his bicycle with a bunch of his friends and their spandex riding suits all have more corporate logos than a Nascar Chevy, he will also be into gossiping like his life depended on it, what else does this thing do?

How do you guys, (or girls, I know there are some there, even if you always use the reflexive pronouns like ‘us’ and ‘we’), use this theory. You know, for useful stuff like, self-improvement, getting a date, getting hired, having fun?“

Glad you asked, New Reader!

Since we’re almost out of time, I’ll just link this most importune and insightful question to the others who know whereof they speak, Doctrinistically-speaking.

Denise, Mimi, Cynthia, Val, Patricia, Lizzi, Dyanne, zoe? Care to enlighten our guest’s question. Or, at least, make sure they don’t wander off and pull on any cinematically-green curtains.

*a hypothetical Reader. you know, like your friend at work, who, when you told him/her about the Wakefield Doctrine, they were, all, ‘Wow! Thats really interesting. What else does it say about me?” And, of course, you promise to email/text the url and, when you run into them again, you start to say, “So, did you read…” and skidding to a halt you see that there are others in the conversation and so you end with, “..in the newspapers today.”

You want to tell yourself that you did not see a look of hunger or, more oddly, a look of disappointment in their eyes, and you suddenly have a feeling of relief, and an uninvited memory of the time in high school, when you asked one of the most popular students at your school to go to the big game and, how you ran into them, in the parking lot, and they didn’t even seem to remember that they had to cancel at the last minute because of a illness or shampoo in the family, and you, realizing you were there, managed to act like you wanted to be…. you know, like that

The important thing is that, before you ask the person, (the one at the start of this footnote-longer-than-the-body-of-the-post), if they had a chance to go to www.wakefielddoctrine.com you remember something that you read there…

Then you smile for two reasons: a) you know it didn’t make sense when you read it the first time and 2) you now know what those people at that Doctrine place meant when they wrote, ‘The Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not them.”