Yesterday and today, I read ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ by Richard Bach. Since the book inspires me, I would like to share some of senses and paragraphs of this book with you. Paragraphs I write the flowing are from different pages. I just pick them up because of likeness.
Enjoy the reading and try to fly!
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.
“Why, Jon, why?” his mother asked. “Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can’t you leave low flying to the pelicans, the albatross? Why don’t you eat? Son, you’re bone and feathers!”
“I don’t mind being bone and feathers, mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can’t, that’s all. I just want to know.”
“See here, Jonathan,” said his father, not unkindly. “Winter isn’t far away. Boats will be few, and the surface fish will be swimming deep. If you must study, then study food, and how to get it. This flying business is all very well, but you can’t eat a glide, you know. Don’t you forget that the reason you fly is to eat.”
…….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.”
“……..We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome……Learn so much at one time that you don’t have to go through a thousand lives to reach this one.”
“….. There is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect….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.”
“….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.”
“…You know the proverb, and it’s true: The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Those gulls where you came from are standing on the ground, squawking and fighting among themselves.”
………He knew with practiced ease that he was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all.
“……We’re free to go where we wish and to be what we are.”
“….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.”
“…Remember what we were saying about one’s body being nothing more than thought itself…?”
“…….the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free…”
“…Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, fine out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”
“…to begin with,” he said heavily, “you’ve got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip is nothing more than your thought itself.”
Photo: http://www.impawards.com/1973/posters/jonathan_livingston_seagull.jpg
Enjoy the reading and try to fly!
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.
“Why, Jon, why?” his mother asked. “Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can’t you leave low flying to the pelicans, the albatross? Why don’t you eat? Son, you’re bone and feathers!”
“I don’t mind being bone and feathers, mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can’t, that’s all. I just want to know.”
“See here, Jonathan,” said his father, not unkindly. “Winter isn’t far away. Boats will be few, and the surface fish will be swimming deep. If you must study, then study food, and how to get it. This flying business is all very well, but you can’t eat a glide, you know. Don’t you forget that the reason you fly is to eat.”
…….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.”
“……..We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome……Learn so much at one time that you don’t have to go through a thousand lives to reach this one.”
“….. There is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect….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.”
“….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.”
“…You know the proverb, and it’s true: The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Those gulls where you came from are standing on the ground, squawking and fighting among themselves.”
………He knew with practiced ease that he was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all.
“……We’re free to go where we wish and to be what we are.”
“….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.”
“…Remember what we were saying about one’s body being nothing more than thought itself…?”
“…….the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free…”
“…Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, fine out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”
“…to begin with,” he said heavily, “you’ve got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip is nothing more than your thought itself.”
Photo: http://www.impawards.com/1973/posters/jonathan_livingston_seagull.jpg
