self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

April 28, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

‘Pond in mid-Spring’
(Landscape orientation)
Our pond as Una would see it from her vantage point in photo #1 below. The water is dark, it’s blueness on loan from a sunny sky, and even then, showing only as globs of light in a shadow-dark surface.
The pond extends from almost the upper left corner and runs down across to the lower righthand corner. (Picture the right side of the top half of an old-fashioned hourglass).
Standing along the dry land are the winter-bare trees. The thinner trunks are closest to the water, clearly the younger members of the woods have not lost the sense of fun and/or adventure.

This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop.

Founded by Lizzi Lewis (no relation to CS Lewis, at least none that we can actually prove), the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) is a once-a-week sharing of writings, musings, photos and all sorts of reflections upon, observations and expressions of the writer’s experience of people, places and things that cause, elicit and otherwise incite a state of being grateful.*

And…and! being a bloghop means that each post is a assorted variety (or would that better be, a ‘varied assortment’?) of views, comments, adventures and insights offered by a group of skilled bloggers …. and us here at the Wakefield Doctrine (…bar rump bump) (lol)

Organizing the multi-circumstial** gathering is our host, Kristi. Beside being an outstanding photographererer… Kristi has that all-too rare gift of keeping things organized without letting the air out of the carefree balloon. (Tougher than it looks, yo).

And so, our contribution to this week’s TToT

1) Una

2) Phyllis While spousal units are frequently seen in a TToT (the Wakefield Doctrine is surely no exception), there are times when the qualities (they) manifest becomes a challenge to describe in writing. This week I’ll simply say, ‘Phyllis shares my appreciation of the positive message in this week’s video.’

3) Gardening 2019 This shall serve as our ‘Before’

4) Beta Reading. I’ve reach the point in my writing of ‘Almira’ where its time to let people read the story in its entirety. Let me know in comments if you’d be interested in reading it and I’ll follow-up by email about the format that is best suited to your technology. No cost or requirement to respond after reading, though any feedback will be appreciated. It should be fun. Seeing how often I’ve done excerpts on these pages, a good number of people know who Almira Gulch and Hunk Dietrich and Edward Fenton are, not to mention Dorothy Gale. So let me know and I’ll wrestle the manuscript into a form that will make it easy to read.

5) Favorite old ‘oTs This from a series in one TToT from way, long ago (look at the condition of the hat on the dashboard)

6) Another vid from that TToT

7) Work and the things I get to do. (Mostly, in the words of Jules Winfield…)

8) Kerry. I’m not overly adept at following people in the social media. Truth be told, in the face of the multiple virtual venues like Instagram and Twitter and other places, I’m about as varied as Ward Cleaver’s selection of business suits. I do follow Kerry on ‘the Facebook’ and from what I gather, she’s off to another conference somewhere in Canada this weekend (which for me brings up visuals of: Winter Olympics, Sgt. Preston, Snidely Whiplash and that cool hotel in Quebec (or maybe it’s Toronto). I watch the things she does as a writer and advocate charging into the world and, I’m like, “Damn!’ How cool/daring/impressive is she?”
Stop by her site and check out her podcast, ‘Ketchup on Pancakes‘.

9) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE (Just in case you’re new to the TToT and, although you know you’ll enjoy participating, maybe you want to wait and watch a while. Send in a Grat Item and I’ll totally post it here. You know, like getting invited to sit in for a one song at the local club.

10) Secret Rule 1.3 (Reference the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

music vid

(now this is a song that offers a glint of light at the base of door that many people will walk past, eyes focused on the map they inherited from family and friends which does not indicate anything of interest. the story (that I choose to believe) is that it was written by Brian May about his dog. and following the thought expressed in the lyrics, rather than that in the chorus, results in something quite positive and uplifting. imo, of course

* …or not grateful, such is the broadness of the over-arching tent of this here ‘hop here, is there is a place for the broken shoelace, studied-like-all-night-get-a-‘C’, find out you have to work on the weekend and all the other things that happen in real life, here at the TToT. They are referred to hypo-grats and require a special level of attention on the part of the writer, the standards for inclusion (in a TToT) provided courtesy of the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

** not a ‘real’ word. chances are, though, if you’re still reading, you get the idea

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

Twosday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “…question-calisthenics for the idle mind.”

April 23, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

Being a clark (and therefore reasonable, time-proven approaches to exercise falling on totally deaf ears) lets get to the Question of the Day:

Do we wake up each morning a totally new person with a set of memories to allow for seemingly natural living?

or

Are we the same person we have always been, despite the fact that we seem to forget some things that we deem important and remember (far too many) things that are trivial, inconsequential in light of the day before us?

Let us know your thoughts.

(A clear sign of being out-of-practice in post-writing when, just a moment ago, I hit ‘Publish’ rather than ‘Preview’)

New Readers?

the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) is a perspective on life, the world and the people who make it up. We are all born with the potential to experience the world from one of three perspectives:

as an Outsider (clarks those who see the world as being ‘out there/apart from’, they are creative and bold with a calculated helpless air about them. funny as hell, great friends, hopeless romantics)
a Predator (scotts the life of the party, the roaring beast (saving themselves for the pack), they are those who have no time to waste on the past and are too busy in the present to be concerned with the future.)
a Herd Member (rogers those who provide the world with stability and predictability, convenience and persecution. without these people: planes would fall from the air, ships would sink (’cause they’re fricken made of steel for cryin out loud) and two plus two always equals four… and (without which the world would lack: fire departments, tax law and the Salem Witch Trials)

At a very early age we settle into one (and only one) for these three. We proceed to grow and learn about life and the people and things and all…as they are manifested in the reality of the above three worldviews.

We never lose the potential to experience the world (and the things and the people in it) from the perspective of the ‘other two’. That being said, contrary to the more mainstream (and therefore rogerian (and therefore kinda unimaginative)) approaches to personalty types in which a person is examined and perhaps asked to take a multiple choice test, the results of which are tabulated, analyzed and dramatized, the Wakefield Doctrine says:

‘Consider how the other person (or yourself) is (are) relating to the world and the people and the situation at hand. Which is the most consistent description of that relationship? Is the person remaining at a distance, vague and noncommittal, clearly with an eye on the exit (or the bathroom)? Might the person you are watching (or the reflection in the nearby mirror) seem at home anywhere there is activity, motion, change, threat and the promise of triumph? (Since you’re asking)…consider the person (or yourself, even though last in this series, you haven’t been forgotten)…do they seem to be at home, confident in the solidity of the earth beneath their feet, the sky above their heads or the bond they have with most of the world?’

Answer those questions and you have the Wakefield Doctrine as a tool to self-improve yourself.

Y’all come back now, heah?

yeah, gotta have some tuneage

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 23, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

This is a weekly tradition, around here at the Wakefield Doctrine. Kristi hosts the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop and the Doctrine provides the example that nothing matters other than to come this exercise with good intent. Writing, rhetoric, organization, persuasiveness are of secondary consideration. Simply share those people, places and things that have elicited a sense/feeling of gratitude. It is also a-chronologic… it could be something that happened this Wednesday past or that day in gym class back in junior high school. The key is you experienced gratitude. (Or, such is the latitude afforded us, one (or more) items could be what the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) refers to as hypograts.* )

Whatever you enjoy writing about.

1) Phyllis (for illustrating the Everything Rule** (and providing an example of how the Wakefield Doctrine manifests in the world of the Herd Member) and showing how ‘over-come-able*** giant problems can be if approached properly.)

‘Appreciating Life by risking Death’
Hard to see in this photo is that Phyllis is running and Una is keeping pace (confident in her dog-gift of moving as fast as necessary when the time comes).
The reason for their haste is in the upper left of the picture. What looks like a decent-sized tree falling towards them is, in fact, a pine that has been hung up in the trees since since breaking at it’s base during a mid-winter.
The tree has not yet fallen to the ground. Phyllis and Una got some extra exercise that one of them needed.

2) Una (a role model)

3) Work which provides challenge with only some frustration.

4) Six Sentence Story. Every middle-of-the-week, people link in with stories that are only Six Sentences long, based on the week’s prompt word. It’s fun. You should join us this week.

5) ‘Almira’ Excerpt (this part is, kinda, not fiction at all. #BreadandRosesStrike )

January 12, 1912 and Friday dawned as just another workday in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The sound of a workday was the polyphonic song of its textile mills in full production.

Its tone is low, like the basso thundering of the ocean on a rocky shore. Like the roar of an ocean, the sound of the mills was not only heard, it was felt. The machines reached from their brick-and-mortar cages down to the earth and back up through the soles of workers shoes, as they made their way to and from their daily stations.

Contralto voices skipped and dashed between the narrow aisles that separated the machinery from the humans. It was the everyday song workers sang to themselves, the mindless hymn to their mechanical gods who they attended in towering brick cathedrals.

Mill workers spent their days in very small worlds, little more than the area required to support a single machine or, perhaps, a row of machines. The worker’s job, in the most simple of terms, was to serve the machine. There was a song shared among mill workers. It found a place in the minds of the working class, perhaps first as a lullaby. A quiet song of hope sung to a baby, in a voice thickened by exhaustion. Words nonsensical, as there was no need for words, only the tone of the singer’s voice. This song would remain with a person for life.

The song that mill workers heard as they toiled through their days grew in complexity. In response to demands for greater productivity, the song took on a questioning tone. And, as they must, questions that remain un-answered for too long, curdle and spoil. Fertile ground for resentment and eventually anger. At some point this song of frustration turns into a song of rage, needing only an appropriate symbol to transform it into a clarion to action.

“Short Pay!! All Out!! All Out!”

Clenched fists holding their first pay checks of the New Year, the workers took to the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The managers, (and their owners), believed they understood the people working in their mills. They were almost correct. The owners (and the managers they employed), believed the workforce, being predominately female, lacked the aggressiveness and independence to organize and go on strike.

They were completely wrong.

The song in the minds of the mill workers, seeing their meager pay reduced, was the simplest of songs, only two lines, really rather catchy… ‘Short Pay! All Out!’

Thrown into the air by thirteen thousand women, this song of defiance caught the attention of the Furies (as they might exist in the modern era). And myth or not, modern days or ancient times, the Furies have always been near… hidden in dark woods at the edge of farm fields of constant labor or perhaps trapped in the towers of the mills of New England. They waited. Three sisters: Alecto (“the Unceasing”), Megaera (“the Grudging”) and Tisiphone (“the Avenging”) took to the January sky.

On an unseasonably warm January day in 1912, the voices of thirteen thousand workers were loud enough to, for a moment, drown out the sound of the machines they served. The workers took to the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

6) the Wakefield Doctrine: the sine qua non of virtually (ha ha) my entire presence here in the ‘sphere.

7) Sunday Supplement

8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE (If there’s anyone out there toying with the idea of participating in the TToT but have a reservation or two, send in a Grat and I’ll totally post it here. You know, like a test drive in a new car.)

9) something, something

10) Secret Rule 1.3. (that getting in sight of the end item surely is a reason to (wait for it)…. feel grateful.

*Things that do not come to mind when thinking about feeling grateful. Things that are, well, annoying and a pain in the neck, like a flat tire in a car, a broken shoelace when in a hurry or failing the test that you were sure you aced. Most grat blogs would relegate these life events to ‘What?! Everyone hates when that happens! Why would you feel grateful?!’ Well, being the TToT, the writers you will read have some pretty highly developed attitudes towards recognizing the good things in life. And even the bad things, when viewed from a certain perspective, lose the corrosive negativity and, somehow, can be experienced as a positive. Read the posts, you will see this all-too rare approach to life and such. ‘course, here at the Doctrine, well, we kinda get a pass on the maturity thing.

** the Everything Rule states, quite simply, ‘Everyone does everything, at one time or another’. It (the Rule) reminds us that there is nothing in life that is exclusive to any one of the three worldviews of the Doctrine. And… and! even more importantly, it serves as a reminder to make the effort to try and see the world as the other person is experiencing it.

*** not a ‘real’ word

music video (often these music interludes have some relationship to the post. gotta say, can’t see it) (lol. good song, tho)

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

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 4, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

Reprint Day!

But before we do, a brief word about the Wakefield Doctrine.

We mean it when we say, ‘all people are born possessed of the potential and capacity to experience the world as that of the of Outsider(clark), Predator(scott) or Herd Member(roger). We all, at quite an early age, settle into one (and only one) of these three and begin practice our style of relating ourselves to the world around us.’

The thing is, there is no ‘good’ personality type or ‘bad’ personality type. There isn’t even a ‘one worldview is superior to the other two worldviews’. Since we all start with all three (as potential) the only conclusion is that, if there were to be a goal of development, it would be to enhance the positive qualities of each and minimize the negative qualities. You know, a clark who doesn’t hide, a scott who isn’t always hungry or a roger who is naturally kind and selfless.

So, in keeping with the eternal duty to maintain a balanced perspective, this post about our herdly-friends, the rogers.

(from April 2015)

clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel

That tells you most of what you need to know to get started:

learning the Wakefield Doctrine

practicing the Wakefield Doctrine

(and, if you’re a clark,) benefitting from the use of the Wakefield Doctrine

so, while there’s a whole page here that will explain why it is that rogers behave the way that they do and what the world looks like from their perspective, lets just employ the ever-popular blogging device, ie.e “5 things you didn’t know about rogers and 3 things that you’d rather we didn’t feel the need to mention!”

rogers live in a perfect world

(if you’re a clark) rogers will see you before you see them and will have already made their decision

rogers believe that they hate the way that they behave with other people, (but when you hear them apologize profusely, that is not one of those times)

the person who introduces you to the day-to-day routine at the new job and uses the phrase ‘…we call this the bible’ ? yeah they’re the roger you need to keep your eye on

and

clarks are fond of rogers (but love scotts), scotts are fond of clarks (but love rogers) and rogers have an irresistible disdain for anyone who does not treat them badly on first encounter

if you’re a clark, there is a way to deal with rogers when they, (the rogers) are being difficult but, although you, (the clark) are capable of achieving the necessary state of mind, you cannot maintain it past the situation that requires it (if you could, you’d be a scott)

all rogers know that the world makes sense and is, at its essence, ‘good and sufficient’ and, (all rogers), seek to practice the perfect way to do something/anything/all things and, they will try to achieve this by reading history (which can be the books of a library or the fables of earlier people, the tradition of a family or the stories one person may pass on that describes those who came before)… the goal is to ….exemplify the (kind of/style of/belief in) behavior of those who history (to their reading) has conveyed honor upon.

…that plus! if we didn’t have rogers you would not want to have to fly from Newark to Biloxi in a plane designed and built by a scott!

jet airliners designed by scotts: very fast with at least 5 or 6 engines (not necessarily required to get off the ground, but make them louder than frickin anything)

a part of the cabin has a basketball net/hockey/or batters box

the stewards would have to wear bathing suits… male or female and they would carry those little air horn things (can of compressed air) to warn the unruly passengers or just in case they get bored

the flight deck would have windows that open, so the pilot could yell at passing jets

0r a clark:

instead of normal seats, there would be couches with pillows and quilts (that would have a disturbing tendency to slide around when the plane has to bank for final approach)

the stewardesses would be scotts and stewards would be rogers

there would be a bathroom-to-passenger ratio of nothing less than 1:2

…ok, enough silliness.

without rogers we would not have:

enduring and stable cultures

CPA level accounting

a judicial system

ships in bottles

civil war re-enacting

Carl Rogers

Fess Parker (aka Davy Crockett)

civil wars

most medical procedures (not involving surgery… that’s from you know who)

Aesop’s Fables

Mrs. O’Leary

Ken Burns

Shaker furniture

Bible/ Torah/ Quran/the Vedas/ Book of Mormon

Fabergé egg(s)

effective oncology

so if you are a roger, let me say, ‘Hey!! good work. Love the Sistine Chapel and the Spanish Inquisition. Tell us about how it used to be!’

…and, apropos of nothing (we trust), other than waking up with the song in my head:

…and to whoever said, “Dude, this is way more likely to resonant with a post about scotts.”? lol. send in your name and I promise a free DocTee the next time a do a run

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

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘…of time, emotion and self-development.’

February 25, 2019 By clarkscottroger

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

The Wakefield Doctrine is grounded upon the notion that there are three characteristic ways of perceiving the world around us; as would an Outsider (clarks), a Predator (scotts) and a Herd Member (rogers). The reality that these perspectives create is what we call our predominant worldview. Standing side-by-side outside a popular restaurant, a clark, a scott and a roger would be experiencing the intention to ‘go get a bite to eat’ quite differently.

The Doctrine maintains that while everyone lives in only one predominant worldview, we never lose the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two.’ And, some of us, have more highly manifested ‘secondary aspects’ than others. For example, I am a clark with a significant secondary scottian aspect. That means that, under certain conditions, I can experience the world as does a scott and my behavior, as witnessed by others, would be more direct and aggressive than that normal to a clark. Equally a roger or a scott can have a significant secondary clarklike aspect. This configuration will lend a certain propensity for excessive curiosity, a tendency towards subtle-to-the-point-of-invisibility humor and an overwhelming desire to mix and match fashions that, at times, will cause the lights to dim and the radio to flare-up in static.

In point of fact, most Readers of this blog, if not clarks, are scotts and rogers with significant secondary clarklike aspect.

No, its true!

Anyway, that’s not the theme of today’s post. The theme of today’s post is using time and music in order to leverage a desire to self-develop oneself. This will resonate mostly with clarks, but you others might get a vibe off it.

The thing about clarks is that although we are not causally emotional, we do have an emotional element. And, for us, the raw power to produce change is, most often, manifested as emotional content. This usually involves the world shifting in significant and un-anticipated ways. (The well-known ‘Holy shit!’ moments that many people experience prior to enlightenment, soul-revealing insight and a near miss on the interstate.)

So find yourself a song from way ago and play it. Listen to the emotional echoes. If you’re lucky, they will be powerful enough to rattle the dishes (in your metaphoric kitchen….as you listen to the song…back then)

Here’s one that worked for me today.