“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your mother looked up to him because he made money. She held his money up to your father, and in many ways let your father know that she did not think much of him. Overall, as a male or as a breadwinner. To her he fell from an initial high estate—meaning his early success, that offered her the possibilities of wealth and social status. All of this was in the back of your mind. Your early financial success also pleased your mother, and she felt that you had fallen from a high estate, not having lived long enough to see your financial gains.

In a fashion you see your father as inventive, creative, and highly vulnerable. These ideas merge with conventional beliefs about age, so that it seems you must take stock. But when you take stock with the feelings we are describing as the emotional yardsticks, those feelings consider valid only the beliefs that go along with them—a traditional male role: the accumulation of money through traditional means—and they discount as legitimate the accumulation of knowledge or wisdom as a pursuit of life. Your mother would say “posh.”

The issue of money has been important because of the conventional male values, and even with Prentice it seems you are not being a man unless you stand up to them. What you do is less important than what you think of what you are doing. Your painting is important. You should not abandon it—and that is also part of the problem.

Whenever you cut off your painting, you have difficulties—and that also involves this internal provincial concept of the male image, for you get upset about your painting because it does not bring in money, when a male’s pursuit should. At the same time, because of matters discussed before, you will not deal with the galleries. You go back to writing notes for my book because you do think you make some contribution despite yourself, and because you then feel you are financially contributing.

The male as breadwinner and the male as artist, or the title of the saga is “Bill Crowder may have been stupid, but he fit in with the crowd.”

It would be nice if you learned to appreciate your own abilities both as an artist and as a writer (louder). It would be nice if you learned to appreciate your comparative financial freedom, instead of arguing with yourself as to whether or not you deserve it, or whether or not you are a good male if you accept it.

Being a male does not cause problems. Limited concepts about maleness do.