“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) This material should be read in conjunction with the sessions just mentioned, dealing with his ideas about work and creativity. He felt threatened over the disagreements last year about contracts, about Tam’s frequent mention that he might leave. The matter of Yale led him in his own way to think of his work as if it were to be an institution, every word recorded, so that you only wrote down what you wanted other people to know—and therefore somewhat discouraged spontaneity of expression.

(9:55.) Overall, being is its own reward—not that there are not others, but that being obviously makes all of your experiences possible, so you cannot tie being up in a package of work only, regardless of the nature of the work. All of this goes back to ideas that existence must be justified, and Ruburt’s early ideas that writing would justify his life—but writing should express life, and is an expression of being, an expression of spontaneity, an expression of emotion, of body as well as mind (all intently).

His early writing, and his best later writing, spring alike from that realization, when he forgets ideas of our work’s responsibility, or how respectable he should appear, and simply does it because it is a natural expression of his being —one expression among others.

Painting and poetry, cleaning the house, seeing the tax man, doing chores —these are all expressions of being. They add to its quality, to its texture. They are part of life’s art. They are the raw stuff from which art comes, whether or not in any given case you can see the connections.