“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Popular novelists and writers are above all things people of their times. They are socially oriented, dealing with lively discourse. They cannot see beyond the times. As a rule, however, they enjoy people as people are. They enjoy stupid people, wicked people, cowardly people, bigoted people, and sometimes wise people too. They do not make demands. They share the belief systems of their times, and they are richly rewarded—generally speaking, now—for there is overall no great conflict between their natural works, their writing, and the world at large.

The world responds to such people’s acceptance. Obviously escapism is involved—but at certain levels of interaction the beliefs smoothly flow from creation to market. No great challenges are presented, and no real condemnations; and when these do occur they are of a conventional nature, perhaps already stylish accusations. They are part and parcel of the social world.

While these people may sometimes be quite original in their particular field and interest, they are still used to dealing with others, through various means that are established—workshops, seminars, and so forth. Seldom do they leave those social rituals.

Flattery is no social crime. It is a psychological art of its own, taken for granted in all circles. You do not flatter others in personal encounters. You make no effort to cultivate the kind of characteristics involved. Ruburt has them, and ignores them. Some important people, in your terms, do not contact you personally except on rare occasions. Those who bang at your doors are the antisocial, the drifters, the troubled, or those so enthusiastic that they also ignore all social rules, in which case you two rise up in arms.

Intellectually he accepts it, but emotionally he yearns for that direct expression. The child may think “My teeth are fine, why yell at me to brush them?” Ruburt thinks “What is there that allows you to speak your concern more actively than your love?” He is verbally oriented. Words have rhythm—emotional rhythms, to which he is acutely attuned. You are saying “I love you. My art is, for whatever reasons, private. I respect it. It involves a method of expression, and a primary stance of my life, regardless of what it brings or does not bring. I am sorry that somehow I cannot use it in the way that you use your writing, and even in the way that I can use mine. When I think that others take advantage of you in monetary terms—government, publisher, or public—it makes me wonder why. I wish that my painting could bring you abundance in social ways also. I feel guilty sometimes when I paint for that reason. I know that you understand on deep levels. I wish I could express my love verbally, but if not, I will express it is this fashion.”

He reacts practically, then, by avoiding what he thinks of as conflict, and you do not help in that regard, for by temperament you are not particularly attracted to the world. He feels he is so attracted, temperamentally, and so puts on physical guards. The bridge here involves the natural world, his love of nature, the connections between poetry, strolling the natural world as opposed to the social one.