self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 27, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

This is a regular, weekly feature at the Wakefield Doctrine, in part because I am one of the host(s) (technically a hostus, being the sole representative from the Y Chromia (motto: “it’s a land of loud, fun and relatively short lived passions! Hey!!”) in distinction to my esteemed co-hostinae (Sarah, Michelle, Kristi, Christine, Kristi, Lisa, Dyanne and zoe)… our Miss Lewis, being Founder and Head Mistress.

…and so I write a TToT Post each week, in an attempt to convey those aspects of my life that engender a sense, (and subsequent feeling), of gratitude. I do this because I am hostus and because I enjoy it and because I believe it is beneficial, both to me for the writing and for you the Reader in the reading. Pretty simple, isn’t it?

I need to hurry my list today. I’m increasingly of the belief that we are all gifted with a certain amount, potential, quantity of whatever you choose to call ‘creativity’. It’s not a pleasant concept, unless you do a ‘double back’ (‘hey! turn that frown upside down!) and say that you’re glad to not have none of it. I suspect that I might do well to designate this as a (potential) item of hypo-gratitude. It’s just that I need to finish rough-drafting Chapter 20 and I’m only just sitting down to write this… does anyone else have an opinion on the matter of ‘creativity: endless supply or spend it wisely?’
Speaking of Chapter 20. Blogdominion’s next installment is due to ‘hit newsstands by weekend’s ending’ watch your local listings! (In Chapter 20, things take a turn sinister as the Vantablack limousine pulls up to the front of Hazel Eddington’s house (actually it happens in Chapter 19). Inside the long, dark car was trouble…. for everyone except the Omni Corp. Maribeth Hartley is not having that much better a day, as she finds herself in the shower with her clothes on, again… we do, however get to visit with Orel and Theresa Rees, (who, alert Readers will recall did a guest appearance in Six Sentence Story this week), who are very much a welcome breath of fresh air, after the time in Chicago, in the company of Anya Claieaux… about whom some have whispered, ‘when she walks into a room it somehow becomes 1:30 am and you feel that, somehow, you might have a shot‘ and Ed Willoughby is feeling quite disappointed in how his wife and family are failing to rally around him in the current crisis and decides to work late at the office, not such a good idea.
speaking of Six Sentence Story, you really should try it! Fun and challenging… come on! what’s not to like? zoe is a gracious and supportive host of this fine exercise in creative writing
Speaking of creative writing, zoe (in the guise of Ivy) has this excellent blog Carrot, she mentioned on the phone last night that there was an interesting ‘hop that she is doing on Mondays…where even non-blog writers can participate and send in things…. sounds like fun your should try it!
Speaking of jokes! It’s a given that clarks are not good at telling jokes (scotts are good at telling jokes…. you know why, really think about it, if you still are not sure, write a Comment, will be happy to enlighten you). which is not to say that clark are not funny… they totally can be, but jokes? not really. So, being a clark (with a secondary scottian aspect) let me tell a joke. Well, know that I think about it, it’s not really a joke…per se, more of a riddle… but you’ll laugh at the end! no, really and because we’re online, you won’t be too self conscious to come up here to the front…. hey everyone !! lets get Dyanne to help us out!! come one up, Dyanne!! OK! I’m going to ask you three question that I want you to answer and then, I’ll ask you a question but I’ll tell you the answer you have in your mind without having to be told…. no! come back! Quick Answers now: What’s 3 + 4? …. ok, What’s 7+2…. alright! and 4 + 5? Now…. name a vegetable!! (Click here and the Answer will be in the Title line of the Post!)
Yep! that’s where you were (when you clicked out to find out what Dyanne was thinking in Item 5 that’s the Gravity Challenge…. it’s a daily (except for Sunday) effort that we participate in that is fun and healthy and such…. if you want to change something about your weight (or you like to take photos of scales) you should join, Christine, Val, Lisa Kristi, Sarah and… Joy! it’s fun
Speaking of fun… you know how stressful reality can be these days and how, even though you know for a fact, that building a fort in the living room would be relaxing, you just can’t because it wouldn’t be ‘adult’ and ‘mature’, right? Well, we have the solution! Like-since-forever-Friend-of-the-Doctrine Cynthia has this blog…. Contemplative Coloring! go there try it!
Una and Phyllis…. well, Una for this item because Phyllis hardly ever sticks her face out the window of my car as we drive along. WARNING! don’t tell Christine about the following photos, well, not the second photo, anyway…. I’ve said too much already!
the Wakefield Doctrine
SR 1.3

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

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 11, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

So here it is, Wednesday evening. Plowing word-furrows on the blank and sterile page of a draft post, hoping that this preparation of the page within which I need to raise some words to grow into thoughts and, maybe even, ideas. That’d be delightful. But for now, I’ll just type in the totally-unsupportable notion that even bad, no… random words on a page can become the birthing place of Six Sentence Story, which as we all know, is zoe’s stern, but encouraging gift to those of us who not only enjoy writing, but enjoy the practice of this art.

This week’s prompt is ‘Draw’

He believed that he knew what she wanted of him. Since their transition from classmates to class-couple, he’d been working furiously on improving his fluency in the secret language of those-who-would-be-in-love. Figure Drawing 101, where they met and became, ‘acquaintances-with-an-option-on-caring’, was where, every Thursday evening (6:30 to 10:00 pm) they conducted their initial negotiations and practiced the art. He was young and inexperienced in the affairs of the heart; she was young.

In both classroom instruction and relationships, there comes a time for testing competency, however, not all testing prohibits cooperation.

As he clumsily smeared paint on the canvas, she said, ‘Do I have to draw you a picture?’

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

-the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘the gods look down in anger, on this poor child’

February 8, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

Good thing this, (reprinted post), was as good as it was! I’m referring, of course, to the post in block quotes below, the one with the music video in lead position. The reason it’s so prominent is that the song somehow captures the feeling of this morning’s semi-pre-dawn weather. The house Phyllis and Una and I live in, is on a lot cut from a pine forest. Not ‘Pacific Northwest pine forest’, which I imagine has mostly 300 foot tall Sequoias and Douglas fir and where it’s always raining or snowing. I trust I’ll be forgiven if this is not accurate, seeing how the sum total of my experience of the Pacific Northwest is courtesy of Chris Carter (X Files) and David Lynch (Twin Peaks). In any event, the reason the song (in today’s reprint) resonates so much is that on mornings like today’s, when it’s windy, there is a sound that’s created by the wind tearing through the surrounding pine trees, that is quite distinctive. Created by the wind as it passes through the pines, it’s a sound that you don’t get in woods comprised of deciduous trees. The sound is the moving of the pine branches as the wind moves over the landscape. This element is enhanced by the fact that you can ‘hear the wind approaching’, the sound of distant trees bending in a gust that increases in volume, not simply because the air is speeding up, but because it is getting closer. Closer to where I sit, darkness out the window, only the sound of the wind. It is not an unpleasant sound. It might be considered an awesome sound, provided that the term ‘awesome’ was coming from a person over the age of 33 (and) having read more than 17 books.

Hey! that’s a cool hook! The three books I wish I could read again for the first time!

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’ Engle
(A tie between): Semi Tough by Dan Jenkins and Candy by Terry Southern

OK, the winds dying down, the world is being permitted to proceed with it’s Monday.

Fans of Blogdominion? Not to worry! Chapter 17 will be hitting the stands later (hopefully) in the day today. The tale continues…

(from December 2009)

(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)

(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)

Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)

Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)…

…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.

Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?

I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.

… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…

(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)

So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!

(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)

(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)

Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.

If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures (clarks, scotts and rogers) will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

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

TTOT -the Wakefield Doctrine- of snow, moes and internets (late, way late, but it’s still Saturday!)

February 6, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

What a week. Thank goodness for the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)! The end of the week this week, was social interaction equivalent of putting barbells in a clothes dryer. Messy, mission accomplished, loud and… did I mention messy?

So I was trying to communicate with Abbie and Kerry and Zoe and Val last night, and was, pretty much on the whole, un-successful. I had no internet. I am glad that I do now have internet. (1)

We ‘talked’ about, or rather, Abbie had a simple and reasonable question/observation, which was to the effect that she might, on this particular week, have difficulty finding the 10 grat items. (Typist’s Note: she may very well have changed her mind on that and written a standard 10 items, however, I’m writing this a day later (than that ‘conversation’ and have not, as of yet, gone to read anyone’s TToT. At the risk of inappropriateness, I like to write before reading other posts). Hey, I’m comfortable with that! (2)

In any event, no sooner did I hear a question (or, imagined hearing a question) regarding the requirement for 10 Items in every TToT post, than I was busily typing… ‘Booke of SRect RUles’!!! (did I mention that I was touch-typing on my tablet?) That being said, sure glad I had it or I would have spent the entire evening in the Un-cabled Country. (3)

I did communicate enough vowels and Capital letters so that Val was able to come to my rescue and wrote on the chat, ‘the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) and even made a suggestion of a possible SR that might be applicable in Abbie’s current situation. (4)

Snowed, by Jesus, really snowed yesterday. Imagine we got nigh onto 6 inches. (5) (damn! totally forgot to mention to A and to Kerry, who was also at the type-chat, that Items of Hypogratitude are allowable, when properly contexted!

6) Una enjoyed the snow. But then again, Una enjoys everything. Except maybe annual trips to the vet. Now Ola was a total power of example for me in this regard. She, like Una, did not enjoy going to the vet. However, once we arrived and got out of the car, she would drag us towards the building. Accepting the visit as inevitable and despite feeling fear, she chose to charge, rather than run away. (7)

8) Graviteers who stand up to the center of any and all significant masses (those of a planetary scale. of course) and, cameras in hand, laugh!

9) Blogdominion. Chapter 17 is sitting right here, in 2nd draft. Hey!! Any one wants to suggest plot vectors, let me know. In Chapter 17: Maribeth and Margaret take some time to themselves, minus semi-boyfriends and interesting attorneys and compare notes, it’s Criminology meets Demonology… well, maybe. Diane Willoughby has lived the best life she’s been able to and raised a fine and pretty much happy family, but now she needs to know more about a chapter in the life of her husband, a chapter that she fears may threaten everything she’s worked to accomplish! And, speaking of lives and families raised, (or hopefully!) Cheri Fearing needs to know what’s behind the change in her husband Tom’s outlook on life, an outlook that finally took a strong turn towards the positive, with his success as a blog writer, but there’s been a change, not so positive, made worse but it’s familiarity. Read all about it tomorrow!

10) Probably the first identified, SR. 1.3 allows that the completion of a list is, in fact, an Item of Gratitude and therefore may be applied as an Item on said grat list.

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

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘if it’s Tuesday, watcha want to bet there’s a Cynthia-post’

January 19, 2016 By clarkscottroger

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

Today’s Post prompted, (or inspired or… instigated or, maybe insinuated), by Friend of the Doctrine, Cynthia Calhoun. Cynthia does have a way of writing Comments that make me think, “Hey, clark, dude, your Reply is approaching 500 words! What say you take it and make yourself a Post and all.” Which is what I’ve done again, here today. Hey before we get to Cynthia’s Comment, did you know that she’s like this talented artist person too? And…and! she has a new site, being Miz Zeitgeist, she’s like totally got the adult coloring thing covered. She’s got this Facebook page

So, to the Comment

You remember the line from Beetlejuice (cuz I know you’ve seen it) when Lydia says to Barbara (the ghost) and Adam (the other ghost): “I myself am strange and unusual”? I always identified with that line.
For some reason this post made me think of that line. Maybe it was the last part talking about fun…enlightenment and…imagination.
HA!

(and the Reply) …the imagination is key to applying the Doctrine…. I’ve tended to downplay how very real personal reality is (many people will give lip service to the concept …like the cool kid who, alone without the company of the other cool kids, stumbles into the company with clarks they’re all, like “oh yeah? Well I’m weird too!!”)

…but I should do a post on the reality of personal reality.

the Wakefield Doctrine is a tool, a perspective on life, a way of seeing the world as the other person is experiencing it. There are three ‘worldviews’, and the one, (of the three), that you grow-up, develop-in and live you life in is your ‘personality type’. By knowing the characteristics of each of the three worldviews, you will not only know more about the other person than they know about themselves*, you will be able to predict their behavior to a remarkable degree of reliability.

About this reality of personal reality matter. As alluded to in my reply to Cynthia, the key is found in the (proper) use of imagination. When we use the Wakefield Doctrine to (better) understand a person, or their behavior, the first step is to discover their predominant worldview. There are simple steps to aid a person in the identification of a person’s ‘personal reality’, the simplest and most concise description, (of this process), is to suggest that you ‘observe the person and infer how they are relating themselves to the world around them’. (The ‘how’, in the case of identifying predominant worldviews is simply, ‘as would an Outsider(clark)’ or just like a Predator(scott) or perhaps more like a ‘Herd Member(roger)’.)

That’s the simple, easy part. The difficult part is to take the ‘reality’ in ‘personal reality’ to heart.

Lets say you have a relative, kinda young, (the early annoying 20s, lets say), and he needs to get a job, earn some money, get on with life. He’s bright as anyone needs to be, is not afraid of work and yet, he doesn’t seem to really ‘want it’ He mumbles and waits (ok… you’re all good enough to recognize a clark…to the point)

Aggravation shows it’s crinkly-starched shirt head, usually right after having a heart-to-heart talk with this person. You explain, slowly, carefully and directly, the few simple steps he needs to take to get the job he wants. And he agrees, and acknowledges your advice. And nothing happens! he misses an opportunity, forgets to call the person you know who was willing to take him all…. you get frustrated and upset at his refusal to listen to your well-meant (and genuinely-would-actually-work) suggestions.

From the Doctrine perspective: he is right and you are wrong.

No, I’m serious! Sort of… it’s not that he was lying when you had your conversation and he promised to do everything you suggested. It’s simply a matter of his reality (predominant worldview) is different from yours.

Different. Personal. Reality.

(no, nothing real weird…just different.)

but there is a way to help. by accepting the notion that he is experiencing the world differently than you are. reality

*unless, of course, the other person is also a student of the Doctrine, but then, the two of you can have a great time watching the clarks, scotts and rogers around you!