self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

April 17, 2024 By clarkscottroger

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

So, the question is, (almost always): would knowing of the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine at an earlier stage of life made any significant difference to the course of said life?

Sure. Of course.

No, not necessarily.

WARNING! Turn the page if you are not certain* that your predominant worldviews (aka personality type) is that of the Outsider (clarks),

New Readers? It’s a given that (if) you’re still reading, you are either a clark or a scott or roger with a significant secondary clarklike aspect. We used to refer to this as (having) a quality of flexible intelligence. But that definition has been surpassed by the more elegant statement of secondary aspect.

Ayiiee!

We just re-read today’s post. ‘El-oh-El y’all.’

No, we’ve got an excuse for the content. You, on the other hand, are not necessarily off the hook for reading and getting something from this rather short post.

Like the wise old saying reminds us: ‘If we would self-improve ourself, everything is a lesson. Provided we can remain silent enough to hear our second response.’

* ha ha clarks are smiling**

** sure, of course the Everything Rule applies to how laughter is manifested in the three. That said, it is worth exploring further, as there is one of those passing, ‘Holy shit! Look at the complementarity among clarks, scotts and rogers in the matter of laughing!!’

No time this morning. Extra credit to anyone willing to address this fascinating question.

OK one hint, that’s all. Consider that the most awful of states (of being) that each of the three can imagine and then, consider the inter-relatedness of each.

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

Frides of Arch -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 16, 2024 By clarkscottroger

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

Detail of the painting “God reprimanding Adam and Eve”, by F. Zampieri (1625)

Yeah, you are correct. You have scene the image above before. In one of our Unicorn Challenge posts. Superstition is the religion of the desperately unimaginative.

That being said, you do know what Friday means: ‘the Unicorn Challenge‘., do you not? It is the day-of-the-week when jenne and ceayr go all ‘June and Ward Cleaver’ on the blogosphere and invite a small group of talented writers to get al TAT on the photo below.

Anyway. Two Hundred fifty words is what they allow us to write a story keying off the photo below.

Yeah? Well, no matter what that old saying, choice is curse of the Garden.

The man stood on the rock. The wind was calm, the sea was flat. The sky was a uniform, overcast grey; so much so, there was no horizon. Anywhere. In any direction, except landwards. The man had zero interest in that direction.

When there is no horizon, only gravity can provide direction. Taking the hint from this most fundamental of forces, the man looked down. Without a bright sun overhead, jealously casting reflections on anything it felt threatened by, he could see to the bottom. Like most of his world this particular morning, it consisted of unexceptional variations on the shade of grey. The exception to this almost blankscape were three red stars.

A phrase from a proverb, long favored by nuns charged with instilling the moral guilt demanded by Mother Church of it’s youngest, came, quite unbidden, “Well I made a difference to that one’.

The man laughed and nearly lost his balance. He noticed his rock pedestal was smaller. Time and Tide, he mused, time and tide.

Feeling his resolve recede, he glanced over the increasing gap between his stand and dry land. Let go, he thought.

On the shore, a boy’s voice met his thought, “Let go! I’ll throw” Childish laughter and wagging tail wrote a couplet of love and innocence as young human and ageless canine played on the beach.

He stepped into the ocean betting that solid land would welcome him.

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

Mondya RePrah -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 11, 2024 By clarkscottroger

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

...out like a lion.

Wind is a funny thing. At the time of this typation, it is at elevated levels outside our window. Like naturally-hyperactive children, (you know, of the more benign ages of, say, fourth to sixth grade), it is rustling the pine forest around the house. Kinda cool, (stylistically and not termperaturistically), how, at this time of day, (before sunrise), the wind acquires the combined qualities of volition and location. You can hear it off in the distance, approach, only to veer away at the last second.

Totally kids. (Before they are fully assimilated by their respective,predominant worldviews.)

(Hokey Smoke! A topic without a RePrint!)

The Wakefield Doctrine is gender and age neutral…

This just in!!

Found A Post [stop] Don’t Remember Having Written It [stop] Don’t Deprive Them New Readers Out There!

ok, ok

here’s your little RePrint

‘and a thousand telephones, that will not ring’ the Wakefield Doctrine: the theory of personality predicated on three characteristic worldviews

November 13, 2012

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of personality that you get to enjoy with your friends and them, before it gets all famous and mainstreamy and everyone will know about it)

Question: If your husband is a roger and you are a clark, is it true that they never accept how much you have changed over the years, since you first met?
Answer: Too true¹

(Welcome to ‘ya shoulda just asked Tuesday’! We will be presenting some common questions and the semi-comprehensive answers…along with a little commentary, mostly to let us get away with dividing the page into block quotes.’)

Question: My best friend is funny and fun to be with, but sometimes when we are around other people he gets like, mean even goes and picks on me. But this happens only with certain people, this big kid that (my friend) knows. What gives?

Answer: Chances are your friend is a scott and the person that, when they’re around, your friend starts acting mean?…well, that other person is a scott too, but they are what we call dominant (to your friend). So your friend, even though he is picking on you, doesn’t mean to hurt your friendship… it’s a pack² thing, you know?
Answer: jeez, if you say so

(This question deals with the changing pack order (from the scottian perspective) and it’s effects on the behavior of a scott. Note: this question (and by implication, the experience cited), will most likely be posed by a clark. Do you know why that should be?)

Question: My fiancée and I are getting close to the Big Day. When we first got engaged, we both agreed to keep the ceremony and everything on the quiet, low-key side, but lately, ( the wedding is in 3 months), she has been talking more to her sisters and some of her old friends and it seems like the guest list is getting bigger and bigger. What gives?

Answer: She is probably a roger. Forget about changing her mind. It means a lot to her, in a way that you will never understand. So relax! Sneak a couple of your friends that she might not have approved when the guest list was small, she probably won’t even notice now, and if she does make an issue of it, say the following to her (word for word): “I understand how important family is to you now. And even though I am not close to my family, you have shown me that my feelings³ of friendship with (fill in the names of you friends) make them like family. Won’t you let my family join your family …darling?“

(And there are those who would say, ‘Hey Wakefield Doctrinaires! Sure you have a uniquely clever take on personality types, but what about practical applications? Huh, what about those?‘ Well, here ya go! Who cannot not identify with this situation? …not counting the rogers, of course!)

Question: My boss is nice enough, but it seems like he tries too hard to be, like my friend or something! Every day it is ‘how are you doing?’, “is there anything I can do to make your job easier?” I mean, all the time! I can’t get any work done when he is in the office, he is always offering to ‘help’! I might be able to deal with this, except that every time I do get some work done that he needs to sign off on, he always finds fault! And if I come up with something on my own initiative (he likes to say that he wants me to try to ‘think outside the box’) he is either totally negative or acts like he is amazed that I actually did it myself! Should I quite my job?
Answer: Probably.⁴

(This Question deals with a scenario that is all too common. And, although we do not propose that all bosses are rogers, we will say this, ‘If your boss is a scott you have: a) a good time everyday up until the day he decides that it is time to change careers or b) a lead pipe cinch of a sexual harassment lawsuit, so the day you get tired of her shenanigans, ‘it’s sayonara see ya in court’
If your boss is a clark, then we know the following: a) if your clarklike boss is female then her boss is a roger, if your clarklike boss is male then his boss is a scott! and b) they (clarks) make great bosses, will stick up for you totally against all opponents, but jeez! enough with the leadership by consensus! Get a set, yo.

That music referenced in the Title of today’s Post? Totally weird. I’m sitting and watching TV and a commercial comes on and before I can hit ‘MUTE’ I hear the music in the background (of the commercial) and I’m off to the great and omnicient google… and here we are

1) rogers are about consistency, if they are about anything at all! The worldview of the herd (rogers) maintains that history, tradition, continuity…consistency is of the greatest good! The worldview is also one in which the individual’s relationship with the world-at-large manifests primarily in emotional terms. So when a (lasting) relationship forms, the details of ‘the other’ person are important, in a sense, manifesting the emotional investment. So, as time goes by, even though people change and grow and develop, the roger will still insist on seeing the ‘original person’

2) scotts, in the initial behavioral metaphor: like pack animals, i.e. wolves, dogs, lions and such. The social ranking in the pack is one of simple dominance, an alpha at ‘the top’ and everyone else in order of strength/prowess/capability downward from there. It is a primary characteristic of the scottian personality type to establish ranking when entering a new (social ) environment. Literally going from person to person, figuratively pushing them on the shoulder in order to establish ranking

3) emotions! always play the emotion-card when dealing with rogers!

4) you could try to…nah, don’t even bother. Maybe if you got to the Doctrine sooner, you might have learned enough to invoke your own rogerian aspect to re-configure your work relationship… but too hard, too frustrating, easier to get another job. But then again, most bosses/middle managers/supervisors/Principals are rogers! so maybe you should be asking about the Wakefield Doctrine School of Self-Improving Oneself…school

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

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 4, 2024 By clarkscottroger

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

This Monday morning’s RePrint post is interesting. It is a point on the continuum of development that is the difference between, ‘Good-That-Explains-It*’ ‘Yeah, that’s the word we really wanted.’

In the first couple of years we, (using the 1st person), explained the perspective of each of the three predominant worldviews in terms of (our) seeing/experiencing the world. Everyone would see the world either as would the Outsider (clarks), the Predator (scotts) or the Herd Member (rogers) and act/react/develop accordingly.

This verb was replaced by various forms of the concept of relationship. Rather than our predominant worldviews being defined as the product of our perception, it became a manifestation of the relationship (more precisely, ‘how we related ourselves to the world’). This is ultimately much more useful. It’s the character of our relationship that determined our experience of reality. You might say, ‘how we saw was what we are’.

whhoah!! dudes, maximal gravitation!

Lets take a beat, post the RePrint and let the day unfold**

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

RePrint!

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine- of pop quizzes and bulletpoints

March 13, 2015

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

Don’t Forget! This Evening… Vidchat at Seven! (‘An Evening at George and Jane’s‘) stop by! it’s hosted by clarks, so that means what it lacks in social status, (“I can’t believe you missed it last Friday!! oh man! everyonewas there!!!!”), is compensated by odd conversations, funny in an interesting way and (sometimes) totally outrageous!

I trust you all know that we’ve found the Wakefield Doctrine to be useful to (any) effort to self-improve oneself. I (further) assume that everyone recognizes that the Doctrine is ‘three things to three people’. (And) that, it’s not even necessary that you determine which of the three you are, prior to trying to using our little personality theory to help you in your efforts. Start wherever you are right now. After all, ‘you can’t break it and, you can’t get it wrong‘. Yep, we still maintain that assertion about the use of the Wakefield Doctrine.

You do know, don’t you, that we can tell which of the three you are, purely on the basis of which of the three you initially say you are…. lol (Hey! New Readers! We have a Rule about identifying one’s predominant worldview. It’s your worldview, so no one can say, ‘By Power of the (fill in something relating to your own worldview) I declare that you are a ….!’ Well, they can say it, and you can even ask them to say it, but no one has any authority to impose their opinion of your worldview (dominant, secondary or tertiary aspects). Doesn’t mean we’re not all willing to share our understanding of the characteristics of the three worldview that are critical to understanding and identifying a person.

For example: one of the more difficult ‘calls’ to make: attractive male person who appears very confident, even to the point of aggressiveness, is he a scott or a roger? You might think, ‘Very aggressive that must mean scott!’ ok… but you want to go deeper than that*
they’re being aggressive, fine! …with/at/towards who? Are they ‘playing to the room’ or are they focused on one person.
Now… (here’s a critical question), is it about them or the person they are focused on? What happens when they are rebuffed and/or told to go jump in a lake? Do they laugh or do they seem to be taking it personally?

another very common situation (more often when a person seeks to determine their own predominant worldview): you see a clark, i.e. the poor posture, the mumbling, the odd, (but interesting), fashion choices, but then this very same person, for a moment, holds the attention of the entire room…. you’re thinking, ‘maybe this is a combination type part clark and part scott‘! You’d be right…but with the wrong conclusion. We all have one predominant worldview, but also the potential to see the world from the perspective of ‘the other two’. For some of us, this ‘secondary aspect’ is so significant that we develop some of the behaviors and strategies and coping mechanisms of this ‘other worldview’…. and these behaviors come to the surface at times usually at times of stress or duress, ( ‘hey! I want ‘cha ta meet someone!! these are my two cousins, Stress and Duress…. aint’ they hot?! you ever wanna to have a wild night lemme know!).

so… bottom line on identifying a person’s dominant worldview: we’re merely trying to infer how that other person is ‘relating themselves to the world around them’. know this and you know them

OK! end of Post. Don’t forget to join us tonight.

….sure! there’s got to be something I can say that will change your life (or have an effect for even just a single moment in your weekend)….

clarks: keep in mind this little fact that is shared by clarks alone…. more often than we allow, ‘it’s them, not us! If you walk away from a surprise conflict (is there any other kind for us?) feeling bad with a tinge of guilt that it was your fault? it’s them not you

scotts: yeah… your gut on this one is right and even though you almost can’t imagine how that family member can believe something so wrong about themselves…. it’s true and….and, chances are they’re used to it, so you don’t need to do anything immediately but, definitely know that they will appreciate whatever you try to do, even if it is ineffective

rogers: give yourself a break…. no, really. while finding and living ‘the Right Way’ confers to others nearly as much benefit as it does to you… they’ll survive if you take the weekend off, hell, they’ll enjoy it and you’ll have a re-energized feeling afterwards

7:00 pm

EDT

* the process of identifying a person’s dominant worldview is a lot like an optometrist eye test. you start looking at the person through the lens of two worldviews (you always throw out the obvious ‘no way’…. in our example above where we said, ‘attractive….confident…aggressive’? the ‘no way’ is a clark which leaves you with scottand roger. From here, you go for more and more intrinsic characteristics and you’ll find that one of the views becomes less clear as the other becomes more and more focused.**

** this same process is used when you identify your own worldview

* to clarks, at any rate¹

1) it remains true that anyone returning to this blog more than twice is a clark or (a) scott/roger with a significant secondary clarklike aspect

** sure, extra credit any Reader who just now got a visual of:

the muy creepy box thing in the HellRaiser franchise
an automated mechanical-rabbit thing at dogtracks
the intro-scroll from the start of the first Star Wars movie

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

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 27, 2024 By clarkscottroger

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

So what if we say, the following is an example of a meta-Doctrine post?

Reader’s response (in reverse the traditional ordering):

rogers: well, I don’t know how to tell you this but, that’s not quite what is happening, it’s simply a normal RePrint post with a power chord on the first beat
scotts: (grin) lay it on me
clarks: I’m listening

A quik Wik:

Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work…”*

Yeah we can live with that. But of the three, clarks clearly have a deep-rooted affinity for meta (hell, they live in meta-time, narrating a life in which the audiance, on average, really wants to like the play, but they have lives. Real-person lives.)

We were going to go for something profound, but time is not our friend. (Time is no one’s friend. Time is the original incubus/succubus of the spirit*)

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “… of Mondegreen(s), reality and clarks”

March 19, 2019

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

Live! From the waiting room of a dentist office. George Michael is singing an example of ‘the writer not realizing the true power of his own work*.

Which surely leads us to the wonderful word/concept ‘Mondegreen’

(…back in real time. A little more to tell you about)

This post is so for clarks (and scotts and rogers with significant secondary clarklike aspects).

It wasn’t ‘Careless Whisper’ that made me appreciate how interesting being a clark can sometimes be. It was Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’.

So I’m sitting there waiting for my hygienist (who is a clark) to call for me, so I did what any (of us would do) I looked things up. As it was, ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ played from the ceiling. Naturally I thought, ‘so who is Bruce?’ And went to wikipedia (the best thing about the internet, from a clark’s perspective) and looked it up. I cite:

A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Lynne shouts “Bruce!”. In the liner notes of the ELO compilation Flashback and elsewhere, Lynne has explained that he is singing a made-up word, “Grooss,” which some have suggested sounds like the Swiss/German expression “Gruß.” After the song’s release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as “Bruce” that Lynne actually began to sing the word as “Bruce” for fun at live shows”

OK I accept that.

Now this is where the fun we have (as clarks) begins…. mondegreen?! What might that be… all blue in linkage.

A mondegreen /ˈmɒndɪɡriːn/ is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to clearly hear a lyric, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.^[1]^[2] American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing about how as a girl she had misheard the lyric “…and laid him on the green” in a Scottish ballad as, “…and Lady Mondegreen”

of course!

I smiled (to myself). This is part of the better part of the world of the Outsider.

The fun and genuine pleasure in knowing the Wakefield Doctrine began when I heard my name called, ‘Clark?’

Given that we spend a few minutes twice a year together, naturally I had long since told my hygienist about the Wakefield Doctrine. And, equally naturally, by virtue of being a clark, she immediately ‘got it’.

So as I sat back in the chair this morning she said, “So whats new?”

I smiled the smile of one clark to another.

“So you know that ELO song… I forget the name, its the one where they say ‘Bruce’?”

She nodded “I know the one you mean.”

“Well I looked it up and there’s this thing called a mondegreen and it’s a term for the times we hear one word and substitute it with another thats different but makes sense in a weird way, ya know?”

She smiled and nodded in acknowledgement and appreciation for the concept.

“You realize, of course, the implications of this for how we deal with reality, right?”

She laughed out loud and proceeded to tell me what it was I was thinking.

Thats the fun of the Wakefield Doctrine.

* ‘Careless Whisper’ I would argue that Seether’s cover of the song is one of those rare ‘better than original’