“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Working on his book today (Aspects), Ruburt made some important connections. I will put these into context, and add other information that he did not get on his own.

Now I told you that when issues are brought out into the open, there are certain conscious stresses and strains that earlier were not apparent, but hidden. The morning issue is finally rising into the significance that was buried before, and not dealt with. Your presence and help have been highly supportive, and also as I planned, your presence has made Ruburt more aware of his morning behavior and thoughts and sometimes he has tried to verbalize them.

Your efforts show clearly your intent to help; again, more important than you earlier realized. But in barely a week he has been forced to face that morning situation, to question it as he really did not before.

Today finally he made important headway. It was obvious to you both that he did not want to get up then, and the question “Why not?” was difficult to ignore. When you finally left to prepare breakfast for yourself, he immediately got up, and barefooted, carrying his shoes and other paraphernalia with him—something you usually do not see him do.

He was not walking properly by a long shot, but he wanted to get up, and he walked as well barefooted as with shoes. You were surprised, and voiced approval. He began to write notes for his book as soon as breakfast was over, and before the table was cleared. He felt suddenly comparatively free.

He worked an hour. You had lunch, and both returned after a short trip shopping. He took a shower instead of going directly to work, put food in the oven, worked another ½ hour, and yet found himself by dinner time with nearly ten pages of new material.

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.

From now on he should forget the word “work” in reference to his own writing. Have him think of it simply as writing. Now this morning at the table he suddenly realized why he did not want to get up this morning, and why at other times he did not want to get up: he did not want to go to work, like a child who does to want to go to school. The connotations of the word crept into all areas of his life, tinged by unfortunate beliefs connected with the word.

Some of the difficulty began when Ruburt started to connect writing with work. Remember his literal mind, and also that he does sometimes operate with extremes. Work was not play, then. It involved making money, definite hours, a routine and also adult status. He felt he needed that.

All of his ideas of responsibility became attached to the word “work.” In the past as given, he wanted to prove to you that he was working at home while you worked outside. Later when money became involved, then for a while fun writing had to come after working hours.

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.

When he felt you both needed money, the work aspects were magnified. He did not dare to drop them. He had seen your family’s reaction to you as an artist. Work must bring money in that context.

Now with his financial success that pressure is somewhat removed, enabling those beliefs to come to light. He believed, for many reasons hinted at or given, that spontaneity did not mix with work. That work involved responsibility, discipline, material rewards, and also that it necessitated behavior that did not come naturally to him.

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.

What he loved to do then was equated with work.

Ruburt’s normal “work periods” would often involve nonconventional hours, however, precisely because they were nonconventional. Each morning he felt it his duty to get up at a decent hour to go to work. At the same time artistic work had other connotations. Everything else was unimportant by contrast, so that other pursuits became taboo. If you went out in the day people knew you were not working. You early used the word “chores” for activities in which Ruburt took a childish delight. With his literal-mindedness, and for reasons given in the past, he also began to think of them as chores. Otherwise he would want to do them and not work.

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.

Your own speaking about distractions, chores contributed. Your habits are fairly, though not entirely, native to your nature. They were not to Ruburt’s. He felt he did need discipline, however, as given in other session. The worries about money, age, all contributed so that he tried to work harder.

He was living with you, someone he loved who had a different temperament, and tried to make his align with your own because of his love, and also because he felt your ides were better. You were older, knew more, he felt; and you were also afraid of the spontaneous qualities that he possessed.

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.

He chose writing initially because of the spontaneity it offered, but his ideas of work directly conflicted with this. A writer could take a stroll anytime. Someone who worked had to keep at the job. A writer could make love in the afternoon. Someone who worked had to inhibit such impulses.