“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(A note: Late this morning Jane and I drove up to the Hoffman Street post office and mailed the corrected script of Personal Reality to Prentice-Hall. Now we wait for page proofs, supposedly due in a month or so, correct those, and our part of the long job will be done. I told Jane I thought the book would be very successful.

Both of you have seen yourselves in the past in a rather specialized light, and interpreted your success, or lack of it, or progress or lack of it, in one particular area only; and you had at least, each of you, a tendency to view the other in the same manner, though this was far more emphasized on Ruburt’s part. So you thought of yourself as an artist, primarily, and judged your success, or lack of it, through that focus, and generally through that focus only.

Ruburt saw himself as a writer, and judged himself through that focus, and other accomplishments that did not rigidly adhere to that focus were not considered successes, or even were jealously regarded as detriments. It is far more obvious now in Ruburt’s case than in your own. Because of this, however, he was never sure whether or not you resented the time spent in this work—the sessions.

Viewing you as he viewed himself, using the same logic, he was afraid however that basically you felt our work a detriment to your own, and that its success, while pleasing you on the one hand, might prevent you from success as an artist because you would not have the time, and that you would basically resent it. You always encouraged him in our work, and he knew this. Still, your part in it conflicted with his ideas of you and what you wanted.

Some of this he is aware of, but all of it was based upon the specializations, the private focuses through which both of you have a tendency to view your lives. You, Joseph, are beloved by many people you do not know. You have enriched their lives, through the notes, through your part in our work. People who are strangers to you consciously feel better because you exist. That is the kind of success that matters.

That is the kind of success that matters. It is only preconceived ideas of a specialized nature that prevent you from seeing that you are successes.

Some of Ruburt’s students would receive great feelings of creative endeavor if you allowed them the simple pleasure of making out envelopes for your (new) letter (to correspondents), but you are afraid of sharing that work, menial as it is. The two of you are doing what you have decided to do, and producing what you have decided to produce. You have put impediments in your way, but you are producing regardless. You are embarked upon a work that you are determined to embark upon. You are successes, whether or not you insist upon thinking of yourselves sometimes as failures.