Jonathan Livingston Seagull

This seagull was in the process of crossing the road (on foot!) and nearly got run over by our car.  We had to stop completely and wait till it got back onto the side-walk ... thank goodness it didn't go the other way because it was a busy main road.

Was the bird hurt?  Unable to fly?  Or was he exploring the surroundings? Why alone and not with his flock? Was he ‘the one’ trying to be more adventurous, getting away from the mundane, aiming for something higher in life, determined to be beyond ordinary seagull? And as a result, outcast from his flock?

Later the same day we watched a flock of seagulls at the water-front at the Festival City. The two events reminded me of the story of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' by Richard Bach, about a seagull who learned that the joy of life is not just scrounging and squabbling for food but passion for flying and reaching higher, ultimately returning to his flock to forgive and share his knowledge with them. I must have read the story a number of times, it took me a while to realise its full implications.

 Some excerpts from the book :

…Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest 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, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

…Jonathan Seagull 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.

…’How you manage to love a mob of birds that has just tried to kill you?’ ‘Oh, 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.’

This story is so true for people.  It's for the people who live by their own rules to make life better, and believe in doing something well, even if it’s for themselves. It is for people who believe there is more to this life than meets the eye.