“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

For some years, to varying extents, Ruburt and you also to a lesser degree became motivated by ideas of who you should (underlined) be, what you should (underlined) be doing, and what your responsibilities were. That tendency became stronger as our “work” became better known. To some extent—with some important variances, having to do with quite legitimate ideas of art—such feelings have also been behind many of your own responses to, say, the appearance of the books, as public packages in the world (intently). In Ruburt’s case the idea of responsibility became far more pervasive, resulting in what I have referred to as being almost a superself image—an image composed of his ideas of the kind of person he should (underlined) be in his position. That image largely at least ignored his own likes or dislikes. He felt he should do many things, for example, that he did not really like to do at all. Small doses of such attitudes can be handled, of course: people do not have to be entirely satisfied with their own performances in order to be reasonably happy and healthy. Remember that you react to interior events, not just to physical ones.

(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.

No conscious decisions were ever really clearly made, because Ruburt felt that ideally (underlined), if he were giving himself true freedom and being true to all his abilities, he would and should be performing in such a manner. He would naturally want to be at least on the most intelligent of television shows, for example, or speak to those groups for which he had some respect.

I do not mean to make derogatory statements concerning your social world. Generally speaking, however, the kind of person who performs as a public figure is not the kind of person who could produce highly creative material of an original nature. The public format requires a kind of social shorthand that does not allow for the development or expansion of ideas or creativity, so that the attempt to explain anything like “our work” would be extremely difficult in that regard. We are not speaking to the mass world, and television is set up for the mass audience, for the other-directed part of people.