It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a
gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water. And the
word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a
thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning.
But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan
Livingston Seagull was practicing. A hundred feet in the sky he lowered
his webbed feet, lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hardtwisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single... more... inch...
of... curve... Then his featliers ruffled, he stalled and fell.
Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor.
But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that trembling hard curve - slowing, slowing, and stalling once more - was no ordinary bird.Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.More than anything else. Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly...............................................................................................................................
When Jonathan Seagull joined the Flock on the beach, it was full night. He was dizzy and terribly tired. Yet in delight he flew a loop to landing, with a snap roll just before touchdown. When they hear of it, he thought, of the Breakthrough, they'll be wild with joy. How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats,
there's a reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!.................................................................................................................
"... one day Jonathan Livingston Seagull, you shall learn that irresponsibility does not pay. Life is the unknown and the unknowable, except that we are put into this world to eat, to stay alive as long as we possibly can."
A seagull never speaks back to the Council Flock, but it was Jonathan's voice raised. "Irresponsibility? My brothers!" he cried. "
Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to discover, to be free! Give me one chance, let me show you what I've found..."
The Flock might as well have been stone. "The Brotherhood is broken," the gulls intoned together, and with one accord they solemnly closed their ears and turned their backs upon him.
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Jonathan Seagull spent the rest of his days alone, but he flew way out beyond the Far Cliffs. His one sorrow was not solituile, it was thatother gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and see. He learned more each day.
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What he had once hoped for the Flock, he now gained for himself alone; he learned to fly, and was not sorry for the price that he had paid.
Jonathan Scagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed..................................................................................................................
"Chiang, this world isn't heaven at all, is it?" The Elder smiled in
the moonlight. "You are learning again, Jonathan Seagull," he said.
"Well, what happens from here? Where are we going? Is there no such
place as heaven?"
"No, Jonathan, there is no such place.
Heaven is not a place, and itis not a time. Heaven is being perfect." He was silent for a moment. "You
are a very fast flier, aren't you?"
"I... I enjoy speed," Jonathan said, taken aback but proud that the Elder had noticed.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being
there."
The trick, according to Chiang, was for Jonathan to stop seeing himself as trapped inside a limited body that had a forty-two inch wingspan and performance that could be plotted on a chart.
The trick was to know that his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number,everywhere at once across space and time.................................................................................................................
"We can start working with time if you wish," Chiang said, "till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin
the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love."
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"Sully, I must go back " he said at last "Your students are doing well. They can help you bring the newcomers along." Sullivan sighed, but he did not argue. "I think I'll miss you,
Jonathan," was all he said. "Sully, for shame!" Jonathan said in reproach, "and don't be foolish!
What are we trying to practice every day?
If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other onceor twice?" Sullivan Seagull laughed in spite of himself. "You crazy bird," he said kindly. "If anybody can show someone on the ground how to see a thousand miles, it will be Jonathan Livingston Seagull." He looked at the sand. "Good-bye, Jon, my friend." "Good bye, Sully. We'll meet again."
And with that, Jonathan held in thought an image of the great gull flocks on the shore of another time, and he knew with practiced ease that he was not bone and feather but aperfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all.................................................................................................................
By the end of three months Jonathan had six other students, Outcasts all, yet curious about this strange new idea of flight for the joy of flying.
Still, it was easier for them to practice high performance than it was to understand the reason behindit. "
Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull, an unlimited idea of freedom," Jonathan would say in the evenings on the beach, "and precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature.Everything that limits us we have to put aside. That's why all this high-speed practice, and low speed, and aerobatics...." ...and his students would be asleep, exhausted from the day's flying. They liked the practice, because it was fast and exciting and it fed a hunger for learning that grew with every lesson. But not one of them, not even Fletcher Lynd Gull, had come to believe that the flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather. "Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip," Jonathan would say, other
times, "is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too..." But no matter how he said it, it sounded like pleasant fiction,and they needed more to sleep.
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The next night from the Flock came Kirk Maynard Gull, wobbling across the sand, dragging his leftwing,to collapse at Jonathan's feet. "Help me," he said very quietly, speaking in the way that the dying speak. "I want to fly more than anything else in the world..." "Come along then." said Jonathan. "Climb with me away from the ground, and we'll begin." "You don't understand My wing. I can't move my wing." "
Maynard Gull, you have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.It is the Law of the Great Gull, the Law that Is.""Are you saying I can fly?"
"I say you are free."........................................................................................................
As simply and as quickly as that, Kirk Maynard Gull spread his wings,
effortlessly, and lifted into the dark night air. The Flock was roused from sleep by his cry, as loud as he could scream it, from five hundredfeet up: "I can fly! Listen! I CAN FLY!"
By sunrise there were nearly a thousand birds standing outside the circle of students, looking curiously at Maynard. They didn't care whether they were seen or not, and they listened, trying to understand Jonathan Seagull. He spoke of very simple things - that it is right for a guil to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form. "Set aside," came a voice from the multitude, "even if it be the Law of the Flock?"
"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other."..................................................................................................
"Why is it," Jonathan puzzled, "that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he'd just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?" Fletcher still blinked from the change of scene. "What did you just do? How did we get here?" "You did say you wanted to be out of the mob, didn't you?" "Yes! But how did you..." "Like everything else, Fletcher. Practice." By morning the Flock had forgotten its insanity, but Fletcher had not. "Jonathan, remember what you said a long time ago, about lovin the Flock enough to return to it and help it learn?" "Sure."
"I don't understand how you manage to love a mob of birds that has just tried to kill you.""Oh, Fletch, you don't love that! You don't love hatred and evil, of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love. It's fun, when you get the knack of it..............................................................................................................
Fletcher turned to his instructor, and there was a moment of fright in his eye. "Me leading? What do you mean, me leading? You're the instructor here. You couldn't leave!"
"Couldn't I? Don't you think that there might be other flocks, other Fletchers, that need an instructor more than this one, that's on its way toward the light?"
"Me? Jon, I'm just a plain seagull and you're... " " ...the only Son of the Great Gull, I suppose?" Jonathan sighed and looked out to sea. "You don't need me any longer. You need to keep finding
yourself, a little more each day, that real, unlimited Fletcher Seagull. He's your instructor. You need to understand him and to practice him." A moment later Jonathan's body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go transparent. "Don't let them spread silly rumors about me, or
make me a god. O.K., Fletch? I'm a seagull. I like to fly, maybe..." "JONATHAN!"
"Poor Fletch. Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly."
The shimmering stopped. Jonathan Seagull had vanished into empty air.
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I was 10 when my mom gave me this book. As most important things in life it came quietly, in the form of a small book. My mom said "Read it, u won't be able to stop untill you ve finished it". I thought what the hell.Turns out she was right.I started reading it out of boredom. I finished reading it a different person.It is a lonely life, one that is lived in love of flight. Still, as Jonathan did, such a life is the only choice such beings have. Any other life choice is unthinkable. So therefore you are destined to spend your life lonely , taking the road less travelled but happy still. And if you are lucky at the end of the Journey you will have found the meaning of kindness and love. And you will be able to see through the appearances and find the kindness and goodness in others. And love it.I love to fly. And I m lonely.Jonathan Livinston Seagull ...I think made me who I am. And for that I m eternally grateful.Labels: Jonathan, Literature, Philosophy
