“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(11:19.) Such communities have few poets, few artists, and fewer mediums. Tunkhannock is actually an idealized version of that kind of community. In those terms (underlined) it is for Loren a step up from, say, Sayre, whose history is richer even in “lower class” origins. Sayre, however, generally now, represented the poorer man’s version of that American ideal, and it was from there that many of your beliefs and those of your brothers had their origins.

(Quietly amused:) Now, with that simple explanation, when you know your brothers will visit, you instantly leap to the old beliefs of childhood, when your mother wanted you to set an example—which meant be someone in society, in normal middle-class society, now. Use your art to make money. Otherwise it was a liability in her eyes. She expected a clearly defined role. Now, she being uniquely herself, is more than pleased with your situation: a good house in a fine neighborhood, and who cares where the money comes from (with more than a little humor)?

Your body, on its own, is very happy to be so well provided for (more humor). Ruburt said that he used to like his class money because it was tangible, and you understood. But you also told him that the money for books, that came in a check, was just as good, and that there was more of it.

(Pause.) Most men’s abilities are prosaic enough and conventional enough so that their value can be ascertained—or worked out by labor unions (amused). If all a man can do to “prove his value” is to put a bolt in a car, or drive a truck, or even teach a class, then he is very careful that that contribution be noticed, and that a definite value be given it. You cannot estimate the value of ideas or of creativity in that fashion.