“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your beliefs tell you, again, that the body is primarily a mechanism—a most amazing machine, but a machine (louder), without its own purpose, without any intent, a mindless assembly plant of assorted parts that simply happened to grow together in a certain prescribed fashion. Science says that there is no will, yet it assigns to nature the will to survive—or rather, a will-less instinct to survive. To that extent it does admit (underlined) that the machine of the body “intends” to insure its own survival—but a survival which has no meaning beyond itself. And because [the body] is a machine, it is expected to decay after so much usage.

Some in your society feel that the young are kept out of life’s mainstream also, denied purposeful work, their adolescence prolonged unnecessarily. As a consequence some young people die for the same reason: They believe that the state of youth is somehow dishonorable. They are cajoled, petted, treated like amusing pets sometimes, diverted with technology’s offerings but not allowed to use their energy. There were many unfortunate misuses of the old system of having a son follow in his father’s footsteps, yet the son at a young age was given meaningful work to do, and felt a part of life’s mainstream. He was needed.

Man’s will to survive includes a sense of meaning and purpose, and a feeling for the quality (underlined) of life. You are indeed presented with an evidential picture that seems to suggest most vividly the “fact” of man’s steady deterioration, and yet you are also presented with evidence to the contrary, even in your world, if you look for it.

(9:53.) Again, in our material on suffering (see the 895th session, for instance), I mentioned that illness serves purposes—that it has a face-saving quality in your society—so here I am speaking of the body’s own abilities. In that light, the senses do not fade. Age alone never brought about any loss of physical agility, or of mental ability, or of desire. Death must come to every living person, yet the time and the means are basically up to each individual. Meaningful work is important at any age. You cannot content the aged entirely with hobbies any more than you can the young, but meaningful work means work that also has the exuberance of play, and it is that playful quality that contains within itself great propensities of a healing and creative nature.

In a fashion, now, your eyes improved their capacities, practically speaking, in a playful manner. The senses want to exceed themselves. They also learn “through experience.” You have been painting more lately. Your eyes became more involved to that extent. Your eyes enjoy their part in that activity (intently), as the ears, say, enjoy hearing. It is their purpose. Your own desire to paint joined with and reinforced your eyes’ natural desire to see.