“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

After dinner he wrote several more pages. Yet all in all he had worked a little over three hours. In the material he wrote there was information applied to himself, incomplete, but I will put it in order; and it has to do with the nature of creativity and his beliefs.

A good deal of what I will say explains the morning episodes. Since I am dealing with this particular area I will not include other issues. For the book he was exploring creativity and other ideas of work and play. Long ago you first used the word “work” in reference to your painting, and to Ruburt’s writing. In the material given and given, the reasons are there as to why he latched onto some of your ideas—so I will not go into those here.

To his mind it is directly in opposition to creativity.

Each day became a battle in which what he loved to do had to be transformed into work, with all of its unnatural connotations—to him. As soon as a workroom really became a workroom his creativity made him leave it, so that he could create outside of the work context.

Seven came precisely because it was free of all contract connotations, and so at the time did Aspects. My books so far were hidden creative goodies, inserted instead of books either contracted or to be contracted, and they were free of the work context.

He tried desperately to schedule his highly creative productivity to fit that pattern. Whenever he had difficulty writing he would become more and more particular about his writing hours. He found that sometimes his so-called writing hours were not as productive as his after-hours writing. He loves to write at twilight, for example.

Sometimes after a full writing day, without too much actual creative production, he would do his best work in his free time after supper, when he did not have to work. So then he thought “I will schedule those hours into my writing day,” and suddenly they became prosaic, and often lost their magic because then they became his working hours.

Now I suggested the definite hours, knowing his position, knowing that he would begin to see that while any activity of course takes a certain amount of time, that his creative work will be judged not according to the hours spent on it but the yield.

This is what he is on the road to understanding. Anything that increases that yield is beneficial to his nature. Any given day a creative urge might span the day. At another time that creative surge might reach its peak in two hours, and deliver nuggets of creativity. His three-hour production today gave him more with a free attitude than five or six hours of determined application to “work.”

When the work idea is carried to extremes than he is not even free in his so-called work time, because then he inhibits what he thinks of as nonwork ideas, and therefore much creativity. He has usually buried spontaneous desires to do other things, particularly in your apartment, so there were frequent dilemmas, finding of course physical expression in symptoms. There has been some improvement physically however since we began the latest group of sessions; but spasmodic.

Now: When Ruburt’s high level of creativity happened to be strong enough to easily include five or six hours a day he improved, since his inspiration took as many hours as he thought his work should.

Inspiration and creativity he felt he could trust, but never felt he could trust his working capacity in the way he thought of work. At the same time other activities became taboo as not-work, so it was “wrong” to putter about the house in his work hours, and equally wrong to work after hours, when people who worked should be free.

Each day became a battle to turn play into work, structure it, and make it personally and socially acceptable. Yet creativity kept escaping the work definition—in my books, Seven and Sumari; and he even felt guilty about Sumari poetry in work hours, for it might not fulfill work’s requirements, produce money and so forth.

All of those reasons contributed to his course of action. He likes the unpredictable. He got up this morning because you did not expect him to, and he could act spontaneously—surprise you and delight himself. The very breakup of the pattern allowed him the fresh creativity even before the breakfast dishes were cleared.

A note: in creativity play and work are invisibly entwined. In your society however work often implies something you have to do, a chore that must be performed for monetary reasons. With Ruburt the play-work elements that had once been together became separated; from play-work to work-play, and occasionally the combination simply became work.

Both of you must examine your beliefs, then, for some of them, Joseph, held you back creatively. You are far more a follower of the Protestant work ethic than you realize, and to some extent, for reasons given, Ruburt picked this up from you. That is, you are not to blame for this situation, bust I am dealing with that area this evening. Do you follow me?

You followed the ethic to a larger degree than you realized, yet often in reverse fashion. You picked up the idea of work but frowned upon certain aspects of creativity as not safe or profitable—as your father’s creative, inventive aspects did not produce financially in your family, and in terms of work did not pay off in social or family terms.

Your mother felt that his creativity was a threat to stability, so maintaining your own creativity stubbornly, you still felt to some degree that it was a threat, that it would not pay off, and so you tried to clothe it in the garb of work, effort, regular hours, and stability, and to deny or play down its playful aspects.

That is enough. You cannot keep up with me, but the correlations that exist, and the contrasts, between both of your fathers, are significant in how you handle your creativity.

Ruburt has always tried to adapt to your natural schedule. To some degree your own natural schedule is also the result of your own beliefs about your creativity. There is much more here, but I had better stop.

You have to some extent closed off your creativity by thinking of it in terms of the time you have to give to “your work.” Again, while a certain time is required for any activity as far as artistic inspiration is concerned, there is little correlation, for artistic inspiration is independent of time.

The yard at 2 or 3 in the morning might amaze you, and ideas of paintings leap up. Your whole concept of work time brings about limitations also. You personally do not think of the dream state as work time, and therefore inhibit very definite inspirations. I want you then to also examine your ideas about work and creative activity.

I am pulling an Oversoul Seven on you, but I am gong to give you an idea for a painting, in the next three days, waking or sleeping—I will not tell you which—but I want you to be playfully alert to it. When you were doing commercial art you were utilizing some important aspects of creativity, though you were not matured enough to use them except in limited form.

You could work with nature despite what you think of as distractions, so examine your own beliefs about playful creativity and work.