“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Nature realizes that there is no such thing as waste. This statement applies also to your earlier questions this evening about the sperm. Nothing in the stream of life is wasted, and everything, whether in your system of reality or not, is in the stream of life. You were born in the Depression, Ruburt shortly thereafter. Thrift was a necessity in those times. There were great contrasts in that period, however—deprivation, severest economic conditions, a spareness of attitude, set off by the greatest criminal activity, the wildest of parties. People broke the prohibition laws who never drank before, and did not like to drink. The ideas of thrift and the puritan attitudes were not the result of the Depression, but helped cause it.

Nature deals with abundance, in which there is no waste. Your life rests secure on top of numberless probabilities, but those probabilities, though not realized by you, are not wasted. When you try to tie a great talent down to a practical end like “making a living,” then you are wasteful (forcefully).

In your society talent, even genius, tries to ally itself, at least for a while, with your economic needs, for if the body does not eat the abilities will not survive. Left alone, the abilities will see to it that economic survival is achieved. It will see to abundance, and not in a self-serving manner but as a leaf seeks sunlight. Am I going too fast?

Then however the abilities want to grow and thrive, and the economic factors must no longer be a prime incentive. If they are there will be difficulty. The personality will try to develop its abilities further in a freer, more mature fashion, but the old habits will hold the personality back. “Will this sell or won’t it?” That question was more or less imperative when Ruburt was learning to use his abilities. Not only that, but the economic need itself was important, helping to focus those abilities to some degree, to the needs and desires of others as well as himself.

When I say economy however I am not simply speaking of economics in financial terms—rather in the larger meaning of economy in sparing down, cutting out nonessentials, fearing to waste not simply money, but energy or time. All of these ideas are based upon the fear that an individual possesses only so much energy that must be hoarded, directed—not easily, but with fantastic force. The clothes dryer in the basement represents energy that you are afraid to use. You realize you have the money to run the machine, or to buy the washer. It seems somehow sinful, however, wasteful and wrong.

Ruburt has been trying to be economical in terms of money, energy and time. He differed from you only in that he carried your own ideas and his further in certain respects. In others, financially for example, he broke away first and you followed. The idea of the spare, poor young artist or writer, living romantically in a garret or poor apartment, has served as a handy self-image for many in their early years, providing a sense of dignity that enabled such apprentices to make their way. You chose the circumstances. You purposely chose a time involved in which writers and artists had it “hard”—so you cannot turn around then and blame the society. You each wanted to be apart from it to some extent. You (RFB) proved to yourself that your art could support you when you were young. You made good money. Then you immediately disentangled your abilities from economics in a particular fashion. You used your dexterity in “artistic” ways in your jobs—but the bulk of your artistic yearnings were divorced completely from the world at large. Ruburt did not know that his abilities could ever bring him money.

If he could not go out so often, if he could not go on vacations, if he could not leave his desk, he would save not only energy but time and money as well. You would not spend so much. He would not be tempted to buy so many clothes. You cannot separate your beliefs in one area from those in another, for they are so beautifully connected. Ruburt’s talents are luxurious. They will automatically bring you luxury. Abilities must be ultimately tied in with your greatest inner aspirations—not tied down by your fears.

For some time in the past, I grant you, you each considered sex uneconomical in terms of time and energy. Rather than avail yourselves of its great refreshment, you thought of the time taken from your work, each of you; beside this Ruburt feared pregnancy, seeing a child not as any kind of fulfillment, but as an artistic and economic disaster.

Most of this is out in the open, but you did not understand the connections that existed between your ideas about the dryer and food and frames, and how they applied to your mental and physical habits. Your art is set off by your frames—so you deny your paintings their natural setting.

The frame connects the painting with the world, and yet divides it from it in the most beautiful of fashions. It makes little difference whether you buy a washer, or ever use your dryer or dishwasher, but it does make a difference that you understand your feelings about these items, and know how those feelings connect with your deeper activities.

He took these steps for his own reasons, but you have come together in a joint reality, so his situation is teaching you things that you wanted to learn, and you are learning through his example. You would not take on that physical coloration. In a way however you are working through the same problems artistically, and Ruburt would never accept that coloration, so he has learned from you there.

It is foolish to say “Why does it take so much time to learn?” For each learning process is highly unique, and contains within it particular achievements that you yourself want; and these achievements not only rise above the difficulties, but in the greater view the steps are seen as steps “upward”—the individualized problems understood as the same kind of challenges you might set for yourself to conquer in a painting, or as part of the entire creative process.