What Jonathan Teaches

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull is a short novel by Richard Bach. Jonathan is a seagull that is bored by the usual routine of life: eating, mating and sleeping. He wants to do something more meaningful. So he chooses to perfect the art of flying. The moment he makes that choice he is stepping out of the crowd; he becomes different from most others in his community. Soon he is cast out by his community. Jonathan goes on to learn the subtleties of flying and becomes a master of that art. He remains outside his community during this period of learning. Once he becomes a master, he returns to his community to teach those gulls that are willing to learn from him. He has more than flying to teach. He is a real Master.

We can divide Jonathan’s life into three phases:

1. The Novice. He is a learner at this stage. He has the urge to learn something new rather than go with the herd. The usual routine of life, what most others do without thinking a bit about what they are doing, fails to satisfy him. He seeks out new meanings. He forges new meanings, rather.

Most people are mere floaters. Most people float through life doing little more than eating, mating, sleeping and amassing a lot of things like wealth, possessions, and positions. A few are unhappy with that sort of life which appears quite absurd to them. They need substantial meanings. And they search for those meanings. They create those meanings.

One of the dangers, and a serious one at that, is becoming an outcast. The ordinary people don’t like the extraordinary which they perceive as an aberration. Ordinariness always wants to maintain its own status quo. It cannot survive otherwise. The ordinary survival has a cosy feeling about it. The seeker is seen as a threat to that cosiness.

2. The Seeker. The seeker has little choice but to stand out and move away from the community. Jonathan does that precisely. Of course, you don’t have to stand out really because the community will cast you out anyway. You are perceived as a cranky chap, an aberrant, or a threat.

Jonathan is lucky that his quest takes him too far from his community. Otherwise, they might have eliminated him altogether. Jonathan flies in the infinite skies, far higher than his fellow creatures whose mundane hunger keeps them close to the sea with all its fishes. Having conquered great heights, Jonathan cannot come down; he has to spread his wings and fly higher. Heights are addictive. Heights belong to the potential masters.

3. The Master. The genuine seeker eventually becomes a Master. He learns the great lessons of life. He learns, for example, that he and you and anyone is “an unlimited idea of freedom.” It is you who set limits to that idea. Your religion can be a limit, your nationalism may be another, your politics, your ignorance, your cowardice, greed, envy – ah, that’s an endless list of limits.

The Master has conquered those limits. He flies above them. Having conquered certain heights, he cannot descend anymore but has to spread his wings and fly beyond.

But Jonathan chooses to descend. He wishes to communicate his lessons to those who are willing to listen. Because he has also learnt that without love all those great lessons are quite empty. “Keep working on love.” They are Jonathan’s final words.

Every genuine Master has a tenderness within, the tenderness of love or compassion. Love is the climax of all great ascents.