“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This morning I quit painting at 11 AM to go to the bank and the stationery store. When I got home at 11:45 I washed several windows at Jane’s request; they certainly needed it. As I finished the job I felt the onset of another “attack” of chest discomfort; it lasted throughout the afternoon, and was most uncomfortable. The same old panicky feelings. I was very upset and angry with myself. The pendulum told me my situation was related to the fact that I stopped painting early, the windows, my worries about Jane, my age—the whole bit, in other words, so that I ended up thinking I’d accomplished precious little over the years. Certainly my learning was deficient, I thought. I simply wanted to help Jane, live quietly, and paint with some kind of passion I’d always envisioned but never achieved. So why all the other hash in life, I wondered? All of those other things seemed to get in the way of the few things I really wanted to do, including writing. With the writing I sought to make sense of everything at least intellectually, but for the moment at least, I thought, this left untouched what seemed to be the more powerful emotional tangle of beliefs.

With that in mind, Leonard’s problem upset you not only because he was and is a friend. You did not get that upset over Bill Gallagher. Leonard lives alone, however, and though he has brothers and sisters, you thought of him as alone. The situation triggered many fears, about you and Ruburt being alone, your age, the age of your brothers, who would come to your aid, or Ruburt’s. If necessary, Leonard at least had a knowledge of the medical world, while you and Ruburt do not. The connection between Leonard working at the school, and Loren—all that was in the background. One event or another would serve to connect all of those issues. This noon, for example, after going downtown, leaving your painting, you found that Ruburt wanted a few more windows done, and the innocent window became a symbol, combining the idea of chores with your fear: if anything happened to you, who would do the chores for Ruburt?

Also ask the natural man is he feels the same way you do. Ask him if he has anything to say. I do want to emphasize that in many, many civilizations men were expected to improve almost all of their abilities with age, as per for example Bill Gallagher’s story of the old Indian who taught the young boys how to track animals in the forest.

Men have always grown old—and women too (amused)—but they often displayed far greater wisdom, health, and even vitality in old age because it was expected of them, and because they expected it of themselves. It is a matter of understanding the process—not of blaming yourself for reactions you do not approve of.

(Pause.) In a strange fashion in your life to date, you managed to think of yourself apart from your age. You did not think of yourself as an adolescent when you were one, for example, so follow that fine good sense now. It simply will help you sidestep issues that arise only in that context.

(Very perceptive on Seth’s part. I’d say that I’ve also managed to think of myself as an artist independently of my age, also, though of course not entirely.)

I am not talking about imagining that you are younger than you are, but of being the self that you are, as you always have been despite whatever age you were. There were a few good points here thrown in (humorously) of general interest, regarding the interpretation of suffering. I hope you noticed.