“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You, for example, could have excelled at certain sports, where Ruburt had no such inclinations. You chose to concentrate in artistic endeavors as you grew and learned through various areas and periods—that is, you tried and enjoyed sports, and writing; and after a while decided upon the painting self as your core of operation, and the particular focus upon which you would build a life.

The sportsman that you might have been would have gathered, from that same available background, other attitudes and ideas that would fit in with his concept of himself, and fit his core focus. The (childhood) camping background served as rich source material, to be used in any way you chose. The sportsman, the writer or the artist—any of them would utilize that background differently, but well, and in such a way that it was particularly suited.

Give us a moment.... Your father’s inventiveness would also be used in the same manner, as source material, by whichever self you chose to become. There are many such choices. I am using three only to show you how those primary aspects of your personality operate now in your present condition.

The painting also, innately now, involves going outdoors, though you seldom paint from nature out in the landscape. Nevertheless, you would be determined to be free enough to do so. The sportsman that you might have been still lives within you enough so that, for example, you automatically stay trim, limber.

(Which reminds me that when Jane and I lived at 317 South Elmer in Sayre, PA, I kept telling myself that by the time I reached 40 I would decide which I wanted to pursue. And when I reached 40, I picked painting.)

You believed the painting self had to be protected. For one reason, you identified your painting creative self with your father, and you felt that he had had to protect his creative self in the household from your mother. As these ideas became entrenched, you actually became more concerned with protecting your ability than with using it. You spent more mental energy setting up barriers to protect it, so that any one instance, say, of interruption or conflict, would immediately arouse the power of the buried fear, and become a symbol for it. You learned repression. Therefore, free time was not enjoyed creatively. You could not paint freely in it, for you were so on guard against distractions that anything could distract you.

You did not, fully now, realize your contribution to Seth Speaks in financial terms, though you understood your creative contribution. Ruburt did not either, until lately, because it was a matter of self-evidence: your contribution financially would come through painting alone. So for a while you were hassled that you were not financially contributing after you left Artistic, and so was Ruburt. You were contributing financially, but neither of you correctly understood this because of that specialized focus.

Ruburt did not want to understand, for he was afraid, in your joint framework, that you would stop painting, and not use the framework you were supposed to, to get money. He thought this would be a failure on your part, for which he would be at least partially responsible. You each had blind spots because your focuses were too specialized and limited.

Now. You knew you needed training and experience to do any writing. You would never consciously face what appeared to be the conflict between writing and painting. You would not take the time out consciously from painting to write. In the framework there was a nagging conflict. You managed to get the training, the experience, in such a way that you by-passed the seeming conflict.

He had no sportsman-like background; on the contrary, a lack of ordinary physical orientation and interaction. His identification with the importance of the mind, then, and his focus as a writer, allowed him to inhibit physical motion in a way you would not have done. The dancing represents Ruburt’s end of the sportsman proposition—his gymnastics.

Now. Though it would seem then that you have made errors, the errors in themselves are creative, and have brought about unpredictable probabilities that now enrich and also change that original course.

Your writing abilities for example would not have emerged had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a “t.” Had that original course and specialized focus been followed to a “t,” Ruburt’s abilities would not have emerged either. In other words the specialized course to which you thought you were trying to hold so tenaciously, was indeed not that tenaciously followed. You each protested, yet did what you wanted to do. You just kept trying to fit what you did into a framework that you had outgrown. You had each identified with that framework so strongly that you were afraid to let it go.

Ruburt’s writing abilities have blossomed because of his psychic experience. Your painting abilities have also. You have not acknowledged that because the paintings have not brought money; you did not want to believe they were valuable, for fear someone would take them away. In a strange manner, you saw to it that your abilities found precisely the elements that would release them, yet your ideas of the writer and the artist prevented you from seeing this.

Ruburt used his body as a symbol of the entire situation, and the symptoms as a way of maintaining privacy, and lack of distraction on both of your parts—again, inhibiting sexual freedom, spontaneous outings that threatened both of your ideas. He would go so far, throw out test balloons, and meet with your disapproval. The disapproval was yours, and you saw his fears projected upon you. You were both happy when he showed some improvement, because neither of you wanted physical disability carried too far, but as soon as he showed signs of being free enough so that he could really take a trip, or dance, you both clamped down. He always waited to see what you would do, and these episodes, again, occurred after enough improvement, so that first he wanted to go out. Sometimes he forced himself to, thinking he was denying you the pleasure of your bars and outings. But despite what you said, he saw that you did indeed disapprove.

After not going out for a while the fear would reassert itself, of looking ridiculous and facing people, so there would a time until he again became defiant and conquered it. The love of the sportsman for motion can instead be used to encourage him toward physical performance. He saw, the day that you slept (last Saturday, January 26) that he is always afraid of his performance in your eyes—that he gets up more often when you are not watching. This natural love of good bodily performance however can indeed be used, and most effectively to your joint advantage once you realize its source.

He felt that in the world’ s eyes this put you down, since your paintings were not selling. At the same time he could not accept your legitimate financial contribution through the work because he felt that might betray you as an artist. His job then was to encourage you to paint and sell your paintings, for he felt nothing else would satisfy you, and/or satisfy your brothers or your family.

In this framework you see yourselves as individuals and as partners in a remarkable creative endeavor that will develop your main abilities easily, and without strain and inhibition. The correspondence has suffered because it has represented your attitudes toward people. As a writer, Ruburt resented the time. As a psychic and incidentally the person, he wanted to answer. The mail also represented business—people who buy books. Inquiries for help, to both of you, represented distractions, those who would take your time, in the old terms, and give nothing.

If your idea of protecting your talent could be transferred to a plant, you would keep it in a corner, a dark one, in a room in which no one could enter, and spend your time worrying about drafts, no matter how well you had closed the windows and doors.