self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

6th Month Sari -the Wakefield Doctrine- (no, stay with me…. it’ll make sense, I promise)

June 2, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

I really should be (writing) over at SoCS with Kerry and them, this June morning, the clouded sky outside my window hinting a day as boring as the inside of an empty cereal box. But, today is Thursday and our friend zoe invites all to join her in her goal to write a story employing six, and only six sentences. It’s a challenge and it’s a puzzle, an exercise for the skills and wit that surely form the basis of our presence in this, the blogosphere, for is not this part of the virtual world, the very essence of 6th Grade composition class, all rules and discipline, barely restraining the youthful enthusiasm of the class? (And me, in the back of that classroom, wrought-iron legged desks dividing the rows, not staring sullenly at my desk because, well, because the dream of being a transfer student, (whose 5 year record of smart-assed under-achieving had been expunged by the parental change of address), is realized here, a lifetime later. Today our Teacher/friend-with-the-cool-and-still-un-broken-toys/one with an enthusiasm sufficient to make up for self-consciousness, zoe says that ‘stall’ is the prompt word for this week’s Six Sentence Story.

….Hey! it looks like I’m done!!

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

-the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘hey!! you oughta hear what I just did!… no, nothing shocking (or) cool’

May 25, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

(I’ve called you all here on a matter of grave concern…..lol)

Well, now that I type this, maybe kinda cool. No, definitely kinda cool!*

I started the Wakefield Doctrine, in part, because I knew that it had the potential to become a very helpful, useful and, all-around efficacious tool for self-improving oneself.**

As you read below, (in the feetnotes), we spend our lives practicing being the best clarks (or scotts or rogers) that we can be. The thing of it is, the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we, all of us, retain the potential to perceive and function in ‘the other two worldviews’.
I’m a clark. I live in the reality of the Outsider. I’m good at shadow-living. I also have the capacity to experience the world of the Predator and the life of the Herd Member. That means, I (potentially) have the behaviors (and skills and weaknesses) that are exhibited by my scottian and rogerian brethren (and brethrini). So, when I consider the ways that I believe I need to improve my life, I know that I don’t have to ‘go out and find’ new behaviors (or attitudes or reflexes). All I need to do is find, within my scottian and rogerian aspects, those things that will add to who I am. (Big caveat here: you know how, say, Christine or Dyanne, are like real quick on their feet and, even when they’re among total strangers, they project a sense of competence and confidence***? Sure, you and I could do that, but they’ve practiced for a lifetime. All I’m saying is, ‘sure, know that you can do those things, but go easy on yourself if you stumble initially. Practice is the answer. The big thing is: you have it within. already. no need to think you’re lacking in a quality. Just a matter of practice.)

Speaking of big things! Just sent out my first Query Letter as part of the getting ‘Blogdominion‘ published. (I was falling for the very clarklike behavior of, ‘oh man! this Query Letter is the most important step…I better get it perfect!!’… well, sure that’s kinda true. And, as soon as I write the perfect Query Letter (and Synopsis)…. I’ll be sure to send it out. In the meantime, I sent the following this morning:

Please accept this Query, (and brief Synopsis and the first 20 Pages of the Story), of my first novel, ‘Blogdominion’. I’m sending this because every process has a first step. In this case, the process has moved from ‘write the complete story’ to ‘get the story published’.

My bio will be brief: born in a taxicab racing down the streets of a small island community in the early morning hours of a cold March day. Educated beyond practical necessity and employed in what would, best-euphemistically be called, a liberal arts work history.
That I’ve written a novel is the direct result of a serendipitous insight into human nature, a blog (based on that insight) and, the recognition of the need to improve my ability to communicate in a written form.

‘Blogdominion’ might best be categorized as a ‘Mystery Science Fiction’ story (which a hint of noire).
86,278 words. And, based on the response (and requests) of my First Gen Readers, the first installment of a Series of ‘Sister Margaret Ryan’ stories.

Synopsis:
A young women finds refuge, (from herself), in a Convent, seeking peace and unconditional acceptance. The 21st Century soon intrudes and she is called upon to help protect the way of life she now treasures, at the risk of being forced to return to the chaotic life, before finding refuge at St. Dominique’s.
Sister Margaret Ryan discovers that a person’s past can never be left behind. In fact, certain skills and talents that she felt were best left in the past are needed, not only to help the Convent, but to save the life of her Mother Superior, Sister Bernadine Ellison.
Halfway across the country, a Mormon Engineer and his young assistant are forced to confront an emergent computer device that, upon attaining self-awareness, is exploring life and, as is so often the case when the young try to learn the ways of the world, things get broken and people die.
A mystery that needs to be solved, a growing threat that follows Sister Ryan back to her new home and the answer to the question, ‘What is it to be alive?’ All are part of ‘Blogdominion’

Pages 1-20:

I got the agent’s name and contact info from an article in Writer’s Digest. The guy said, ‘1 paragraph bio and synopsis’. I suspect that, going forward, I’ll need to be a but more expansive on both the bio and the synopsis. But, that’ll be my on-going effort. The process has begun.

OK, Just wanted to keep everyone up to date with Sister Ryan and them. You all know how, ‘I can’t wait to share everything in my life with my friends everything,’ I am…. lol

(Did I mention that, self-improvement is not always easy or comfortable? That feeling of being sick to your stomach seems to accompany a lot of the progress that’s made?)

*don’t want to get into too much trouble with zoe, what with her being all, “clark, you need to remember what/who you’ve become as a result of all your efforts and throw that old self-image stuff out the door!! doug! watch this guy and bite ’em if he tries to backslide”.

** in a nutshell (yeah, ha ha Kristi) the Doctrine maintains that ‘personality’ is that collection of practiced strategies and styles of interacting with the world around us that we learn, develop and practice appropriate to the character of the reality that we find ourselfs in, when we are just small, young lifeforms. If I find myself in the reality of the Outsider, then I am going to develop, (and learn and practice), those behaviors that let me stay in the background and yet, still exert my will to whatever extent that need exists in me. And, for those of us growing up in the world of the Predator… honing response and attack skills, ignoring overly subjective responses to the world, are all part of growing up a scott. and the same with rogers, of course.

*** ’cause they scotts! of course!

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

11 Web Pages Open -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘clarks and the seduction of creativity’

May 18, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

Funny, the process becomes the end in itself.

It’s a matter of fact that. of the three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine, clarks are the creative ones. That being said, we have the ‘Everything Rule’ to remind us that, ‘everything happens to everyone, at one time or another’. So, when it comes to creativity as a quality (available) to people of the three worldviews, it’s not correct to say that scotts and rogers are not/cannot be creative, they can! It’s simply that how (a quality) such as ‘creativity’ manifests is where the difference lies. (And the cool thing is, when you consider the manner in which a thing/quality/characteristic exists for each, the character of that personal reality becomes all the more easily appreciated). Lets take creativity. (please!)

clarks will create (or perhaps it might be more accurate, if not more obscure to say), bring into existence that which has never existed before

rogers will create by taking that which exists (be they tiny tubes of paint, of pieces of wood or even notes on paper) and reconfigure, re-arrange into something unlike any previous arrangement of (tiny tubes of paint, of pieces of wood or even notes on paper)

scotts will take from themselves that which exists within everyone else and present it in a context that no one has, (or can recall), witnessing before

there! pretty simple, isn’t it?

clarks create, rogers innovate and scotts evoke

so the Post subtitle? why do I seem to cast creativity in the role of a temptation that might be better off fed? Because as clarks, we create because we’re Outsiders, we are able to create because we’re Outsiders and, yet, we cannot create within ourselfs the thing that might change our Outsider natures.

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

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘now for a TToT that’s a little different’

May 7, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

If I weren’t in the middle of worrying about getting Chapter 6 of ‘Almira’ underway, I be laughing at the cool circumstance of this week’s TToT. Never let it be said that we don’t enjoy a challenge! So, here’s the thing: for reason beyond her control (and our understanding), our Leaderini, Lizzi Lewis is unable to provide the critical html that allows each post to display icons that are direct links to everyone who participates in the ‘hop. Without that, we’re left with a number of blog posts that are standalone in nature (like reading to everyone, even though you’re standing in your house and they’re all in their own houses)… sort of like the power being off (in the old days) or your server being down (in the not-so-old-days).

We are not, however, totally deprived of ways to communicate among ourselfs. There is that bastion of meaningful and totally sublime though, ‘the FaceBook’! and on that ‘Facebook’ there’s a group (Ten Things of Thankful) and there we can post our individual posts. Being posted there, people can come across our posts and click on them and read them…one at a time, individually..

…that being said, need I remind anyone that this is the Wakefield Doctrine? and that unusual changes, impediments and ‘sorry, we can’t do this the way we always have’ is like… ( gasoline on a fire/meat to a hungry lion/low-cut dress to a male (or female) scott/’your father and I will be away for the weekend, do you think you’re ready to be left on your own?/well, I can come up, but only for a short time/could you help me pick out a lawn mower, there are so many to choose from) ya know?

So here’s the link:

I’ll just post the photos that I’m using over there, here…. the rest, well… aw darn! I guess we’ll just have to wing it this week!

Item 1:

Una, first thing in the morning, doing her job, (defending the house from marauding squirrels)

Item 2:

Item 3:

(would not permit upload…. just the photo of my computer screen showing the Facebook TToT)

Item 4: Una (and Phyllis) on vacation!

Item 5: the Treehouse

Item 6: well, this is the view from the porch (or balcony or deck) of the treehouse)

Item 7: for work and for walks… the car

Item 8: (this is a photo of a ‘real’ world building in Chicago that I picked to play the part of World Headquarters of Omni Corp… don’t just scream, ‘nefarious!’) in the Serial, ‘Blogdominion‘

Item 9: (cover photo of the Serial ‘Almira‘) Chapter 6 on it’s way! (In which we meet the Chief of Medicine at St Mary’s, Dr Thaddeus Morgan. A good doctor, but somewhat driven (both by ambition and demons of childhood) he is on a Mission (in no small part instigated by one Mrs. Emily Gale) to re-imagine the use of the resources of the hospital, with an eye to elevating little Circe to be more on a par with Kansas City and Topeka. The good doctors mission: make available room in the hospital for private rooms. When we meet him he is in Ward C, in search of under-utilized value. Dorothy rides a bicycle to Town, her mission: meet Tom Hardesty (for a little fishing) and go to the hospital in the hopes of getting Mrs. Gulch to talk to her. And Hunk, ever the kind man, promised Dorothy a ride home.

Item 10: (SR 1.3 yo)

(In lieu of little icons:

Val over at

(the Graviteers!)

Kerry and Cynthia and Denise

and, zoe (as the Curateress of the Six Sentence Hell!)

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

Tuesday Post -the Wakefield Doctrine- news and updates!

May 3, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

not a staged photo! ‘NY Systems Weiners’ on Smith St Providence RI was the late night choice de cuisine and, like a 1970s version of those Japanese restaurants where they, like, cook at your table, Pascale or Tony would balance a row of cranks on his 2.am.forearm and spread the love on them weiners,… mmm 2am dorm food!

Workweek update!

In an effort to maintain a reasonable level of Doctrine-centric Posts, here at the Wakefield Doctrine, I’m constantly arguing with myself over the question of whether or not we have a certain limited amount of words to write each day. The opposing view is that it is a matter of discipline, organization and endurance, rather simply running out of words.

I’m mostly thinking…both are accurate.

There! Conflict resolved! Speaking of conflict, you know, of course, that, of the three personality types, clarks hate conflicts, adversarial interactions and people who might point us out as being Outsiders, way more than do scotts and rogers. Hell, scotts consider conflict to be the romance portion of their love affair with life and the here and now and rogers.… well, with them it’s important to remember that we live in different realities. What a clark (or a scott) might see as an un-enjoyable interaction, can be a very different experience for a roger. That’s one of the things about the Wakefield Doctrine thats so damn wonderfully helpful. The Doctrine is there to remind us that my experience of the world may very well be different from yours. Same planet, same Menu that we staring at, in the small Italian restaurant in the middle of the semi-abandoned mall in the old suburbs, the original high-end anchor store, now a wholesale discount place (“Why Buy From Real Stores? We’ll Sell You Stuff That They Didn’t Want!!”) and there are more tattoo parlors than jewelry stores. Anyway, you and I (and, what the hell, someone else*) and we meet for lunch. The waitress comes over and there will be, for the purposes of fun and speculation, standing (attractively/patiently/annoyingly), in front of us, what in realit(ies) is/are 3 different waitresses. You and me and that friend of yours that you insisted on bringing along may very well have 3 different experiences, ordering our lunch.

That’s all I wanted to ‘say’. That the thing about perspectives and the Wakefield Doctrine is that I choose to believe that your personal reality is just as real as my personal reality. (The Cliff Notes Version: it’s not that the other person refuses to see the world as it really is, it’s not like they’re just being pig-headed and stubborn and they’re not, (necessarily), doing what they’re doing just to get you mad. It might just be as simple as, what they are responding to is an element of the world that does not exist in your personal reality. ya know?)

Hey! Thanks and shout out to Kerry for mentioning ‘Almira’ in her TToT this week! Totally appreciate it.

…speaking of Almira

Chapter 5! ‘Almira‘ is out and waiting to be read. You can find it at www.almirastory.wordpress.com or at Almira (at jukepop.com). We get to know our main characters a little better, because, like the little discussion of the Doctrine above, everyone wakes up ‘in the morning’, literally or figuratively, of course. So by seeing how to take the measure of the day before them, we see the world through their eyes.

* there are three personal types so, since I’m clearly the clark in this scenario, it’d be real good if you go ahead and make that third person someone you know who is not a clark or (whatever) your predominant worldview is… the example will work way better.