“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session is a continuation of those for February 16 and February 19. Jane’s voice was very quiet.)

It became—relatively now—a displaced discontent. You felt that there was nothing you could do about the situation, that there was no reason to worry about it, but the anxiety was displaced then, draining your energies.

Ruburt’s energies will be released in the same way. I am sure that you appreciated the encounter that took place the other evening, under my auspices. (On February 19.) What was said should show you that Ruburt’s condition also became the focus of your combined discontents, the physical picture of it. The energy to maintain it, almost (underlined) in direct proportion to your combined discontents, was composed of the displaced energy not put into your prime purposes. This is difficult to verbalize precisely—

(“I understand.” I thought Seth was doing very well.)

Your discussion this evening was beneficial and showed a point in progress on both of your parts. Earlier Ruburt would have become alarmed and frightened, felt you were being negative, and discouraged at any verbal and emotional encounter with the feelings that you expressed, precisely because they brought into the open feelings of his. This time however he recognized that earlier he would have brooded and gone to bed, leaving you to brood alone at his ways.

A point now that I want you to heed in advance: In the past, because of joint negative attitudes, I have given the reasons for some of these. Improvements in Ruburt’s condition were ignored (underlined) largely by both of you, and instead concentration was upon the symptoms that still remained.

After the first bad bouts for example, when he improved enough to go up and down stairs without even limping, when he was agile enough at least to climb some rocks at the Glen (Enfield, near Ithaca, NY), to swim after being largely incapacitated, you both acted as if the improvements meant nothing, discounted them largely, and concentrated upon those symptoms that did indeed still remain.

I am not saying that he was completely better then, but the improvements far outweighed the symptoms at that time. Do not let that happen again. That was the result of discounting improvements as they did show themselves, and this applies to both of you.

You chose to do what you did, individually and jointly. In narrow terms you can say that you both made a mistake. In larger terms no error was made. You simply happen to be dealing with the area of activity in which terms like “mistake” appears valid. Do you follow me?

Practically speaking, while you had any kind of a job you were ill at ease and off balance. You compared your lot with that of others who had jobs also. There was only a difference in degree.

Your own attitude was partially set by your father’s innate and quite strong sense of independence. He hated to work for anyone else. The same applies to Ruburt’s background, mainly with his grandfather. You would have felt freer had you tried to freelance; for freelancing, while it would have produced long range its own problems would have allowed you a greater sense of freedom.

Here you were influenced, where Ruburt was not, toward a job because of ideas of security that came from your mother, and, despite your conscious evaluations, from the activities of your brothers. Your having a job made sense to you therefore for these reasons, more so than it did to Ruburt, who had no such countering influences. Now give me a moment. (Pause at 10:27.)

Now. I will tell you something else. You felt that you owed it to your mother to try a secure type of financial arrangement, as far as you were personally able to do so. You realized that a full-time job was out of the question. Remember at least that you did not fall into that trap, and that you both had enough sense to avoid it.

The type (underlined) of commercial art you did as a young man was not the answer, but served many purposes. It gave you prestige and money. It gave you practice, but beyond the point that you pursued it, it could have frozen your abilities. The prestige and money, tied to your mother’s hopes, could have led you into other channels of commercial art that would have led you completely astray as far as fine art is concerned.

All of this I tell you because it should help clear up some of the reasons for your actions. Beside Ruburt’s “natural leaning” (in quotes) characteristic dislike of families then, there was the “outsiders” argument, and you were often put in the middle.

Your family to Ruburt was one of society trying to make you toe the mark, hence his often exaggerated reactions. As you know, spontaneously Ruburt would state your position to your family as a symbolic statement to the world at large for those reasons.

What you do in that regard is not nearly as important as an understanding of your attitudes. The basic “problem” (in quotes) again therefore has festered, gone underground, in the past. It was obviously one born from your basic creative natures—a challenge rather than a problem, but one that was interwoven with all kinds of social and economic and family connotations.

Finally your way of life became not a symbol of what you were, as it was for a while, but more largely a symbol of what you did not want to be, jointly and together.

Ruburt also of course knew this, as he knew about your curly-headed friend the other night (at the Hurricane bar, amused), and he reacted vehemently, particularly against your parents. To help support your mother, particularly in the beginning under the situation as he sensed it, and with all of his other anti-mother sentiments, was the greatest of outrages. This is another reason for his actions on the Sunday visits. Hopefully, this will help you both understand.

Part of the difficulty is that it has become a symbol of Ruburt’s disabilities at this point. At home the stairs are the symbols. After working one day, Ruburt expects instant results. Now there have been results. As you begin to make your own work plans, and work, this will also generate results. Remember the encounter (of February 19)—it was with a part of both of your personalities, not only Ruburt’s.