self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

May 25, 2020 By clarkscottroger

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

Monday?!! An actual, non-sponsored by Hallmark/the car dealers of America/Friends-of-three-day-weekends holiday?!

Well, there was a time when the days without a new Wakefield Doctrine post were the noteworthy exceptions. The most remarkable thing about this blog, (and the Wakefield Doctrine itself), has been its ‘low overhead’. It, (both this blog and that Doctrine), has never ‘been a chore’, or, for that matter, work. Better to say, the energy (benefit/enjoyment/pleasure) we derive has, consistently been more than we’ve had to expend. Even a semi-spontaneous post like today’s.

Lets finish up where it all began.

One October morning in 1984. (Or, perhaps a September afternoon in 1983. Definitely not a May morning, like this one, but possibly during the early afternoon of a day that did not include: excessive cold, snow, rain, or months with more than seven letters and a ‘Y’.)

One day, I drove to Pawtucket, Rhode Island to visit my friend, Scott. He worked in a small music store located next to a large music store. (Before the rise of Chain-Everything stores, the large store was Ray Mullins Music. For reasons lost to the passage of time, we called the smaller music store next to it, Tony American’s. Pretty certain that wasn’t its real name. But, if you’re a regular visitor to these pages, that comes as no surprise).

In any event. Scott worked as salesman and repair guy. The building, an extension to an Art Deco office block, (you know, lots of plate glass, brass handles on the doors which were mostly glass; there was even a transom window over the entrance.) The interior was a single open space. On the left, instruments on display, to the right, a glass counter running from the front window, and taking a 90 degree left, along the back wall. The repair department was the counter along the back wall.

The morning, (or early afternoon), I walked in, the store was empty except for Scott and one customer. They were standing at the counter, ‘in the repair department’. The customer had arrived only a minute before, as I heard him say, “Hey man, this thing my uncle gave me don’t work no more.” With that he placed an electronic component on the counter in front of Scott.

Catching Scott’s eye, I nodded and held back, pretending to look at guitars. Now that I think of it, here, forty or so years later, this was an uncharacteristic choice, i.e. to not get involved in their conversation. From where I stood, I had a view of both men and the counter top. Being as small, (and empty), as the store was, I had no trouble hearing the conversation that followed.

“He gave it to me for my birthday. I used it fine for a while. Now, it don’t work.” The customer repeated, somewhat redundantly.

From my vantage point, I could see the electronic component was what some called a, ‘dubbing deck’. Basically a cassette tape recorder with two recording heads. A person could put a pre-recorded cassette in one side, a blank cassette in the other side and copy the contents of the first to the second. The device had volume and tone controls for each of the two recording heads. There was a single Master Volume control, (a wheel-type dial, set nearly flush with the surface), in the middle.

Scott looked at the dubbing deck. Reaching under the counter, he brought out a roll of black electrical tape and tore off a two inch piece. Making certain the Master Volume control wheel was up as high as it would go, he put the tape over it. All without saying a word.

“Here you go, good as new.” Scott pushed the component back across the counter. In answer to an unasked question, Scott plugged the recorder in an outlet, the customer put a cassette in both sides and, after testing all functions, grinned broadly and, with a “Thanks, man!” left the store.

My world changed.

And, (how odd this may sound), my life changed.

I was not directly aware of it, (the nature of the change), just that something happened that was significant.

As best as I can express it today, thirty-six (or maybe thirty-seven) years later, my reality now included the ‘fact’ that we all live in a reality that is to a small, but very real degree, personal.

(While it took another twenty years before the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers coalesced into what gave rise to this blog, that day, in a store that is no longer in existence, I was given a gift of perspective. Scott’s solution to the customer’s problem was incontrovertible evidence that his personal reality was different from my own. That his solution to the problem reflected a world, a reality, quite distinct from the one that I inhabited.)

cool

Often the choice of music to accompany any given post is a matter of feel more than (any) historical significance or congruity. This is an example. From 1968. Still in high school, two years before encountering the progenitors

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

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “wait, aren’t you supposed to be on edge and self-absorbent because there is a Six Sentence Story tomorrow?… oh, of course not! you’re a clark!”

May 20, 2020 By clarkscottroger

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

A little, impromptu post, if I might. Promptued* by a comment from, Friend of the Doctrine, Mimi.

“How much we do owe the Rogers. And now i understand why when asked why i believe what i believe, i go so far to into the logical explanations that some people wonder if i have a degree in theology or something.”

Indeed.

M’s comment serves as a perfect cascading explanation of the Everything Rule, which states: Everyone does everything, at one time or another. What it means is where the cascading begins.

First level: “…when asked why I believe …far to into the logical explanations …degree in theology or something.”

From the perspective of the Everything Rule first: clarks, scotts and rogers can be religious in ways that corresponded to some or all religious beliefs, tenets, systems and such. Theys Buddhist scotts and there are Wiccan rogers and clarks among the ranks of Jehovah Witnae. They all remain, Predators, Herd Members and Outsiders, because those labels refer to the reality in which they respectively live. We call these personal realities (one’s) predominant worldview. It is what you experience. Note: I did not say ‘It is what you see or hear when you and I walk down the street, on our way to lunch in a popular restaurant’. It is what you experience.

ok, so that’s the first level.

The second and equally interesting perspective focuses our attention on how a thing (or hobby, occupation, belief system) appears when one of the three personality types exhibit it. We refer to this as ‘manifesting’. For example, ‘How does mainstream religion manifest in an Outsider(clark), Predator(scott) or a Herd Member(roger)?’

Brief aside*** It is clear that, based on the characteristics and personal qualities of the three ‘personality types’, each might have an affinity for a given thing (or hobby, occupation, belief system). We might say, for each predominant worldview, there are certain activities more in sync with it than others. A scott tends to be a more effective cop than a clark, a roger who is an accountant will, all things being equal, be more successful than a clark and while there are clarks who are standup comedians, there will be a difference in audience size, (Don Rickles versus Steven Wright)

The point is, the common world is made up of many things (hobbies, occupations, belief systems, likes, dislikes and pet peeves) but when you’re looking at a given person, remember that it, (the aforementioned list of everything that makes us human), is manifested, in part, as a reflection of the reality in which that person lives.

Predominant worldviews are not personality traits, tropisms, appetites or instincts, they are the reality of the person.

Thats the fun part.

Thanks out to Mimi for providing such an observation as to engender this discussion.

*ha**

** ha

*** well, I am a clark

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

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- (a post from 2011… from what I gather, I started to get pretty amusing around then.)

May 19, 2020 By clarkscottroger

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

So, before we continue on to the reprint, which, if I must say, is rather old school Doctrine post (in the best sense of the word(s)). It was a time of near boundless energy, limitless enthusiasm and constant discovery of how our little personality theory was out there, waiting to be organized and enjoyed by all.

Speaking of reprints, here is Mimi’s Comment on Sunday’s post:

In my introduction to this week’s TToT, I made the following assertion:

‘Seeing how the time that has elapsed since the founderinae, Lizzi created this bloghop, is abstract and fairly subjective* consider everything/anytime fair game.
[The footnote:] * lol …that phrase right there, “As the time…elapsed since…is…fairly subjective” Can I get a “No, but it’s true!” from the clarks out there?‘

To which Mimi referred in her comment

‘Of course time elapsed is subjective. How long a minute takes depends on which side of the restroom door you are on.’

Not only is this the correct answer. It is consistent with the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine. Allow me to elaborate and I will try to keep it under 700 words.

The nature/character of the three predominant worldviews (personality types) can best be described in the phrase: clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel. The mind, the body and the heart. clarks live in a reality that is rational (even when it’s totally looney), scotts exist in a world that is directly expressed, (“I scream, therefore I am!”) and rogers…rogers! they live in a reality both wonderfully complex and defying of all rational …reason, a world manifested as pure emotion.

Now the perspective that our friend Mimi so elegantly elicits with her example, emotions are non-rational. (No, not irrational, non-rational) (ok, maybe irrational…sometimes) But, and this is the cool part for us writing this post, a number of years ago, we made the ‘discovery’ that the world of a roger is a-chronologic, as in, ‘without time’. A better way to say it, is that, in the reality of the Herd Member, time is an optional extra, a nice suit that his/her friend wears on occasion. That said, it, the distinction between the past and the present, the difference between now and age six years and four months is insignificant and inconsequential.

So, as Mimi shows us in her comment: Time, or rather, the compelling effects of time, the true power of time is both non-rational, emotional and totally rogerian.

Thanks M!

Apparently the world was going to end (again) back in 2011. May 22nd from what I gather from the post below.

Not to be read until May 22, the Wakefield Doctrine Guide to the Endtimes….

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

“… and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

You made it!! Apparently there are some who believed that May 21, 2011 was the beginning of the End Times. That was the predicted day that all the Good People were going to get on the bus and move up to Heaven.

….so now that all the rogers on the planet have left the room, we can finally talk seriously.

Show of hands…who did not think that clarks and scotts were going to be left behind, rapturously speaking? Come on, you know that even though you were hoping that your rogerian aspect was going to blossom at the last minute, you know that you would have had a problem keeping a straight face when the announcement, “Would all the Saved, please proceed to the up-bound escalator, please!”

So what is it about the rogerian personality type that makes them the one that you ( clarks and scotts ) know will be voted ‘personality-type mostly likely to be Saved’? Is it (because):

rogers are the friendly ones

rogers are the glue to whatever social fabric you might care to consider, civic, religious, scientific

rogers require rules and traditions, they are in fact the only ‘reason’ that history of human civilization has any continuity whatsoever

rogers are behind the creation or and perpetuation of virtually all human institutions, religious, civic, political whatever

rogers do not create, they maintain, they assemble, they are the machine operators

rogers are the engineers, accountants and physicians

rogers are the judges, the firefighters and high school teachers (except for gym teachers)

rogers believe in a quantifiable universe to such a depth that it is not seperable

(when you are new to a neighborhood), rogers are the ones who come over to introduce themselves, and they will appear in a group ( herd)

It has been said that without the rogerian personality type, we would all be still living in caves and looking over our shoulders when we found something to eat or drink. ( ‘What was that?! Lord Amighty! theys scotts in dem woods’!!)
That rogers are responsible for organised religion goes without saying; that they do this, not for the benefit of clarks and scotts, but simply because it makes sense is what is often overlooked. Recent discussion in Ms. AKH’s blog and DS#1′ Girlie Deluxe and even the Progenitor roger‘s ‘Bag ‘n Tag focused on the rogerian female. The consensus appears to be that as rogerian males are the source of the traditions and conventions, mores and morals (that) form the fabric of a lasting society, it is left to the rogerian female to indoctrinate the young people into the rogerian view of the world. At the risk of repeating ourselves, this is a good thing, otherwise there would be no stability among people so that culture has the chance to develop, which in turn creates the foundation of a civilized society. In a sense we owe everything to the need of rogers to conserve the past. Without a past, technology would not have a foundation of discovery to build upon and this blog would have to be done using smoke signals.

The most interesting thing to come out of (this recent) discussion is the concept that rogers‘ live (life) by storyboard’ Just as scotts live in and of the present, rogers are located in the past, and because of this must spend much time making sure that the future comes out right. This is simply because rogers live in a quantifiable universe, and therefore it is about conservation and organisation. No less an authority than DownSpring phyllis tells us that : ” we (rogers) live in a box. It is a box that contains everything that is in our lives and it contains everything that will happen. This box might be small or it might be huge, so huge that we cannot see all of it at one time but knowing it is a box is what matters. And boxes are good things, they keep everything in reach”
Living by storyboard simply means that rogers are more concerned with the accurate reproduction and placement of the things (objects and emotions, actions and reactions) from the box into the moment they are about to live. If you have ever gone up to a roger and caught them by surprise, the likely response will be , “hey! come on, I’m busy! why are you interrupting me?” and now we know why, they are busy getting the moment just right.
There is a commercial you used to see for a camera (or some such device)and the tagline is ” lets you make memories’… that is the world of rogers.

(Hey you know the music we used to listen to in clubs and bars in the late 70s and 80’s? Call it rock music (for lack of better word) well the rock music of the 21st Century is Country Music)

apropos of nothing I can think of, I got a line stuck in my head while writing the intro, I’ll let Gene and Cleavon speak for themselves.

https://youtu.be/ZZvT2r828QY

(for my own listening pleasure as I finish this Tuesday post):

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

Monday Morning Musings* -the Wakefield Doctrine- (*…because nothing says, ‘Here, read this. I wrote it years ago’, like alliteration**)

May 4, 2020 By clarkscottroger

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

Lets do a reprint post. This one is from May of 2013

(Here is where I usually Tom Sawyer myself into writing an actual, not a reprint (at least to the extent that we all agree that everything, after puberty/adolescence (puberty/adolescence motto: You remember how, when you were four or five years old, you were sure that you were meant to be: an astronaut, a ballerina, a cowboy, a doctor, a mother, the President, …an astronaut? You will have all of what you need for an insane few teenage years to achieve that. Try to keep it in mind.)

So, I see the post below and I smile. I think to myself, I think, ‘Man! Did you really write these every day of the week?’ Of course, the answer is: ‘Yes, yes, he did.’ I will avoid the temptation of getting all Master Po on this thing and leave it to you to remember the inference and/or look it up. In any event, this is good excerise (lol…. I misspelled exercise…. the spellcheck insisted on ‘Excretes’. I laughed. The universe can be a funny thing.)

It’s good to see that the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine have remained as they were since we started writing this blog. A couple of developments, refinements, if you will, have enhanced the usefulness of our little personality theory. The Everything Rule. This Rule reminds us that, as far as the Doctrine is concerned, there is nothing that is exclusive to one of the three worldviews. There is no ‘thats something only a scott would do’ or ‘working at the profession is exclusively for rogers‘. This (Everything Rule) is not to imply that there are no distinctions among the three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine. What it does do is remind us that we all live in what amounts to a personal reality. A common world. A personal reality. So, of course a clark can be a cop and a scott might be an accountant or a roger a defense attorney. Where the Everything Rule is most helpful is to require us to consider how these professions (or likes/dislikes, avocations/ hobbies, whatever) manifest in the world of the person we are considering.

Enough of the Everything Rule. Lets read the reprint

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

Shit.

Reluctant decision, after forced-into-decision, followed by lesser-of-two-evils decisions and there you are, stuck in your seat in class with nothing more on your desktop than a folder (one of those drugstore binders with the little square windows built into the covers (that rectangular window is created with a clear material that you know must be the ‘plasticene’ that the Beatles sang about) and inside the square window are the words: ‘the Wakefield Doctrine (an alternate perspective on personality and personality types)’ and when you open the cover (an improbable pale blue-greenish color) you see one page with the words. ‘The purpose of this paper….’ (you know, the weird thing is not that you have not completed the assignment that you know you are capable of completing, no the weird thing is that you are feeling self-conscious…in advance of the words, “Mr Clark…. your Report, please’)

(ahem,,,,) the purpose of this Post is…

In the week coming, we will:

return to the Comment/Question posed by Amy (Adorable Chaos) that asked what our personality theory had to offer her (…being beset on all sides by a scott and/or a scott with a little faux pack of rogers),

describe our first Thursday Wakefield Doctrine AP Study Hour (and announce the time of this week’s Hour)

talk about the Wakefield Doctrine book

write 2 participatory Posts: one tomorrow on Tuesday ( Twisted Mix-tape Tuesday hosted by Jen and Kristi ) and FTSF ( the tilt ‘n whirl of blog hops presented by our Four Sistas: Janine and Kate and Stephanie and Dawn )

and finish this Post… which while it may not seem important, I have come to believe, courtesy of DownSpring Cyndi, that there are ‘Read-blogs-days’ of the week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), so I damn well better find a way to provide you, my Monday Readers, with a little more in content than a catchy Title and a numbered bullet list.

The Wakefield Doctrine says this: we all experience the world in what you might call a personal reality (we call it a ‘worldview’). Now this idea of a personal reality is nothing radical, no ability to fly… no invisibility (well, except for clarks) and no unicorns ( have you read the description of the worldview of scotts?! unicorns? nooo sorry, all chased off or eaten).
Anyway.
Personal reality is simply meant to designate character of the world as we experience it, the ‘inside view’, if you will. We are all born with the potential to experience three distinctly characteristic realities: the world of the Outsider (clarks), the reality of the Predator (scotts) and the life of the Herd Member (rogers). At an early age, we ‘pick’ one of these three and grow and mature, responding and reacting and developing traits, strategies and behaviors appropriate to the worldview we inhabit. clarks are very creative because they see everything from a distance, not conditioned or indoctrinated into ‘the right way’, scotts are confident to a fault, simply because in order to survive as a predator time spent in introspection is time spent being eaten by a larger scott …and rogers, they make such ‘good’ managers because they know that everyone and everything will be so much better once they understand ‘the Proper Way’.

So, for the Wakefield Doctrine, personality types are not habitual ways of responding to situations in life, personality types are reflections of the world as the person experiences it.

The big thing for those looking to use the Wakefield Doctrine as a way of understanding the behavior of the people in their lives is that, while we all inhabit one of the three worldviews described here, we never lose the capacity to see the world ‘as do the other two types’ do. In other words, I am a clark, but somewhere within is everything I would need to live successfully in the worldview of a scott….or a roger. Herein lies the key to the Wakefield Doctrine being a tool for self-improving yourself.
Quick example: DownSpring Cyndi. A clark. We all know that you can spot a clark at family reunions ’cause they are the ones behind the camera. Show me people at a get together where some one whips out a camera and I will show you the clark…they are ones that volunteer to take the photos. In any event, clarks hate to have their pictures taken (and they are not wild about being tape recorded). Cyndi has started to do a series of video Posts. They aren’t just good. They are amazing. I say this because as you watch them, you are not seeing a clark ‘toughing it out’ enduring the fear and revulsion of being on ‘film’. You are seeing a clark using a portion of (her) scottian aspect. (scotts, as we all know, loves the spotlight, they are natural performers.) Cyndi has managed to access that aspect of herself (remember, we always retain the abilities to experience the world as do ‘the other two’). How cool is that? Example: Video Post

Enough. It’s Monday and the alphabet, like a fuse has ticked itself down to clark…. time to “hit that streets a- runnin’ “

** nah, just wanted to use the word ‘alliteration

now for some music to ease into the week ahead (nothing like so seamless, 70s horns and vocals

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

April 19, 2020 By clarkscottroger

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

Sunday Yard Project: Before
Clean up the deadfall to the left of the path.
Hey! Upper right of photo, two tree trunks in parallel leaning over to the left? That the leaning cedar that you will often see photos of Phyllis and Una walking… under.

This is the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. Created by Friend of the Doctrine, Lizzi and hosted by Kristi.

It is a bloghop in which participants link their reflections on the people, places and things that have elicited a feeling of gratitude. There are no requirements for length (of post), number (of grat items) or degree of theme-appropriate writing (the Wakefield Doctrine).

But it’s fun.

So get out them key boards. Write yourself a TToT post and link it up. We’ll wait.

For me, this week:

1) Una

2) Phyllis

3) the frequency of these posts… (since 2009) means that I barely have to type the title or, for sure, ‘the Wakefield Doctrine’ at least in the beginning of a post… it totally autofills (autofill voice done in a classic Alan Rickman sarcasm*: “W – A – K – E …don’t tell me! I know this one… the Wakefield Doctrine… )

4) the Wakefield Doctrine (see?!!)

5) the Hobbomock Chronicles. This week, Episode Fifteen. Don’t miss it! Well, there’s no danger of that, at least, at the moment. As I have not completed writing it. While this serial approach may be less satisfying than curling up with a book and reading until ‘The End’ I seem to be doomed to the style of writing. I enjoy the idea that I discover the twists and turns just a very short time before you Readers do. Seems to be the only way I can get a story down ‘on paper’. At least for now.

6) Work. Fortunately, real estate brokerage is considered an essential business in both Rhode Island and Connecticut. So I get to drive around as much as I like, first responding and such.

7) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE

8) The capacity for physical work. At least at the moment, before I head out into the woods to move pieces of trees from one point on the ground to another…. I’ve got it! Lets post a Before and After. (With any luck no emergency medical personal will be in any of the ‘After’ photos…lol)

Here is the ‘After’ photo from the top

9) Call in from our friend and clark-extrodinarae Cynthia. Always fun and informative-istic. Discussions ranged from the current strange world to the use and application of the Wakefield Doctrine as a tool for understanding the other person and having fun doing it. (New Readers: One of the things the Doctrine is real good at is to help see the world as the other person is experiencing it. key word: experiencing (it). If all we do is try to see the world from their eyes, we’re not getting the most from the exercise. Reality (according to the Wakefield Doctrine) is very much a personal matter. You and I can walk through a mall. (Wait! Gotta amend that, for two reasons: a)the current world does not condone crowded malls and, 2) I’m a clark… walk through a mall?!! yeah, sure thing.) In any event, the idea is set aside what you think the person is seeing and reacting to and try to feel how they are feeling encountering the current situation.

10) Secret Rule 1.3 “chapter 3.1 (sub-chap- z), “…[T]rying to complete a TToT with(out) acknowledging the implications of Secret Rule (1.3) would be like swimming without touching the water… should (you) could try [and no one denies it wouldn’t be cool to see] but…just don’t work.’ (Book of Secret Rules aka the Secret Book of Rules 2009- 2020 cc extant)

* the late Alan Rickman (from Dogma) At: 01.25 surely the best sarcasm (and reaction) in any movie.