“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

First of all, children seek enjoyment. They recognize that enjoyment and self-satisfaction are important gateways to the development of their abilities. You drew because drawing gave you pleasure. Ruburt wrote for the same reason. You did not draw or paint because you felt a responsibility to do so.

That kind of enjoyment provides the child with a feeling for its own center. The child becomes self-directed as it learns to follow those pursuits that particularly increase its own individual sense of enjoyment and satisfaction. It might be important that the child learn to put off enjoyment for a period of time, to extend the period between desire and gratification (long pause). Such a period might include a training period, for example, where piano lessons might have to be taken before a concerto can be played.

Even then, however, the enjoyment of the act—in that case playing the piano—is paramount. The sense of enjoyment however does increase and extend individual abilities, and those impulses leading toward enjoyment are meant to serve each individual with a private inbuilt avenue of expression that will help center the person within himself, and within the world—and again, in such a way that both the self and the society are benefited.

(Long pause.) These issues are extremely vital in cases of creativity also, although they operate in all areas. The good parent, for example, is motivated by a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment, in which case his or her “responsibilities” are almost automatically reinforced and performed. People usually talk about what they should do only because they have forgotten how to remember what they want to do.

(9:08.) In the main you do what you want to do. Your idea of responsibility may give you a very poor rating, however, in your own eyes for your practical performance in life. The idea of responsibility, as it is understood (underlined), is at its heart other-directed. It may even lead to the idea that the enjoyment of the self alone is wrong. Often chronic physical problems are the end result of such dilemmas. Ruburt felt for years that he should (underlined) become a more public person, do workshops, television shows, radio tours or whatever—that he should (underlined) nearly perform miracles in the psychic arena, that he should have a large class, that he should hold as many sessions for others as possible. Those ideas come to him constantly, of course, or those suggestions, through the mail, the expectations of others, or his observation.

(Long pause.) As creative people, and as certain kinds of creative people —not being audience performers as musicians, for example—you deal with the creative construction of artistic worlds in which as your friend (painter) William Alexander would say, you are the master magician perhaps—but it is your world primarily, created according to your vision. All of the activities that bring you the largest pleasure in life generally are of that nature. This does not mean that you do not enjoy companionship, or that you do not have a give-and-take with society.

Ruburt began to feel a pressure as the books became better known to carry out a kind of responsibility, not simply to sell books, for example, but to get the message out into the world, to help others—all considerations that seemed to be—he thought—the acceptance of adult behavior on his part: actions that would be more or less expected of him. Again, they were actions that to a large degree went against the grain. They could be performed, however, to some extent, at least some of them, and he could on occasion enjoy them, and he did well enough, for example, with public speaking or the few shows that you did.

I gave you a session not too long ago dealing with the natural person, and specifically with Ruburt’s natural characteristics. I outlined the ways in which he naturally behaved. This other-directed superself image, however, largely of social construction, superimposes the idea of responsibility over the idea of enjoyment, and in many cases is in direct contradiction as far as Ruburt’s natural tendencies are concerned.

The fact is, however, that he is himself a different kind of person. The radio shows were the least bothersome. He at least could do those at home. He did not want (underlined) particularly to do any of them, though he enjoyed most of them once he began. What he enjoyed, however, was the radio’s fairly secret quality—the fact that he was hidden, and yet his voice went out into the world.

Ruburt did well today, and made the proper decisions finally, being much more aware of his own psychological mobility as his moods and his body statements changed. The idea of the letter was excellent, and represented your contribution (to Prentice-Hall). Your own difficulty with notes on our books or whatever comes mainly when you forget your own self-directedness and sense of enjoyment, and replace those with a sense of responsibility.

In Ruburt’s case throughout these years, the idea of responsibility took over too much prominence. (Long pause.) His difficulties with inspiration arise when he forgets his ideas of natural enjoyment and replaces those with the idea that “he has a responsibility to use his abilities”—as if he would not fulfill them motivated by his own enjoyment and love.