Jonathan Livingston Seagull
“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… This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one´s self-popular with other birds.“
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach is a story of an ambitious and adventurous seagull whose main aim in life is to do something worthwhile and unforgettable. For this reason, he practices flying day and night and soon learns to fly flawlessly to the utmost heights of the blue sky.
From the very beginning of the parable, the author has depicted Jonathan in a different light from his fellow seagulls by giving him the attributes of ambition and hard work bestowed only to human beings. Therefore, the protagonist´s greatest desire in life is to fly off to the far-off lands instead of wasting his time in looking for the food as other gulls do.
Although Jonathan is never praised by his clan for his ambition and is forced to lead a life of an outcast, he never gives up on his desire and finally succeeds in flying at higher altitudes. After becoming an expert in flying, he returns back to his family and opens a school for his fellow seagulls where he gives them flying lessons.
As a result, many young gulls learn to fly high and become able to discover the world around them. Through the story of Jonathan seagull, Bach depicts the powers of ambition, curiosity, struggle and hard work in an individual´s life. Trusting in his capabilities and strength, the seagull teaches the lesson of remaining true to one´s cause and desire.
Animals are generally considered to be unwise creatures following the age-old traditions and customs throughout their lives. However, the author Richard Bach does not believe in this notion.
Therefore, he portrays the story of an extraordinary seagull in front of his readers to remind them that any creature filled with the unique ambition to fulfil his goals at any cost can successfully achieve his aim in a nick of time.
Bach´s Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a tale of ambition, desire and struggle. Depicting the life of a unique seagull possessing the traits of insurmountable ambition and ultimate struggle, the author inculcates the importance of trusting in oneself and leaving no stone unturned to obtain one´s desires.
Jonathan´s desire to be different from other seagulls not only benefits him but provides opportunities to other gulls to aim for soaring high in the sky conquering the world instead of remaining ordinary animals collecting leftover food of the other animals.
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Podrobnější verze:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach is a fable in novella form about a seagull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection. Bach wrote it as a series of short stories.
The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself and learns everything he can about flying. His increasing unwillingness to conform finally results in his expulsion from the flock. Now an outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities while leading a peaceful and happy life.
One day Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a "higher plane of existence" in which there is no heaven, but a better world found through perfection of knowledge. There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him "pretty well a one-in-a-million bird." In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous self-education, and teaches him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to "begin by knowing that you have already arrived."
But, unsatisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like himself to tell them what he'd learned and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, and Jonathan gathers around himself a flock of other gulls who have been outlawed for not conforming. The first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, ultimately becomes a teacher in his own right, and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks.
Part one
Part One of the book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism, conformity, and limitation of the seagull life. He is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he experiments with exhilarating challenges of daring aerial feats. Eventually, his lack of conformity to the limited seagull life leads him into conflict with his flock, and they turn their backs on him, casting him out of their society and exiling him. Not deterred by this, Jonathan continues his efforts to reach higher and higher flight goals, finding he is often successful but eventually he can fly no higher. He is then met by two radiant, loving seagulls who explain to him that he has learned much, and that they are there now to teach him more.
Part two
Jonathan transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying. He is only capable of this after practicing hard alone for a long time and the first learning process of linking the highly experienced teacher and the diligent student is raised to almost sacred levels. They, regardless of the all immense difference, are sharing something of great importance that can bind them together: "You've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull." He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: "You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way."
Part three
These are the last words of Jonathan's teacher: "Keep working on love." Through his teachings, Jonathan understands that the spirit cannot be really free without the ability to forgive, and that the way to progress leads—for him, at least—through becoming a teacher, not just through working hard as a student. Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals and the recent tremendous experience, ready for the difficult fight against the current rules of that society. The ability to forgive seems to be a mandatory "passing condition."
Part four
In 2013 Richard Bach took up a non-published fourth part of the book which he had written contemporaneously with the original. He edited and polished it, and then sent the result to a publisher. Bach reported that he was inspired to finish the fourth part of the novella by a near-death experience which had occurred in relation to a nearly fatal plane crash in August 2012.[1] In February 2014, the 138-page Bach work Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student, published as a booklet by Kindle Direct Publishing in February 2014, also contains allusions to and insights regarding the same near-death experience. In October 2014, Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition, was published, and includes part four of the story.
Part four focuses on the period several hundred years after Jonathan and his students have left the Flock and their teachings become venerated rather than practiced. The birds spend all their time extolling the virtues of Jonathan and his students and spend no time flying for flying's sake. The seagulls practice strange rituals and use demonstrations of their respect for Jonathan and his students as status symbols. Eventually some birds reject the ceremony and rituals and just start flying. Eventually one bird named Anthony Gull questions the value of living since "...life is pointless and since pointless is by definition meaningless then the only proper act is to dive into the ocean and drown. Better not to exist at all than to exist like a seaweed, without meaning or joy [...] He had to die sooner or later anyway, and he saw no reason to prolong the painful boredom of living." As Anthony makes a dive-bomb to the sea (at a speed and from an altitude which would kill him) a white blur flashed alongside him. Anthony catches up to the blur which turns out to be a seagull and asks what the bird was doing:
"I'm sorry if I startled you," the stranger said in a voice as clear and friendly as the wind. "I had you in sight all the time. Just playing...I wouldn't have hit you."
"No! No, that's not it." Anthony was awake and alive for the first time in his life, inspired. "What was that?"
"Oh, some fun-flying, I guess. A dive and pullup to a slow roll with a rolling loop off the top. Just messing around. If you really want to do it well it takes a bit of practice, but it's a nice-looking thing, don't you think?"
"It's, it's...beautiful, is what it is! But you haven't been around the Flock at all. Who are you, anyway?"
"You can call me Jon."
In the subsequent parts of the book, Jonathan Livingston goes on to become the coach and mentor of Fletcher, and teaches him about the finer skills of flying, including how to achieve the 'perfect speed'. He even tells him that it was actually possible to fly at the speed of thought.
Wikipedia
Neil Diamond - Be (Introduction Of Jonathan)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, interpreted and illustrated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APw8TdGi40o&t=38s
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, narrated by Richard Harris (an audio recording of the classic book)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8COt1n3jDqA