Jonathan Livingston Seagull

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sunflower8926
sunflower8926 Posts: 485 Member
in Chit-Chat
Just curious...
Who has read it? What did you think?

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  • sunflower8926
    sunflower8926 Posts: 485 Member
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    Just curious...
    Who has read it? What did you think?
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,015 Member
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    I read it 25 years ago. There are some good take away points, when it first came out it was so over-hyped, though. You know when someone says, "It's the best book ever," it just can't measure up.
  • stillkristi
    stillkristi Posts: 1,135 Member
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    yes, about 100 years ago! LOVED IT!!!!! Favorite quote:

    :heart: “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.” :heart:
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,015 Member
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    wow, kristi, did you remember that for 100 whole years??

    I liked "Watership Down," for animal-based-70s-life-lessons type books.
  • stillkristi
    stillkristi Posts: 1,135 Member
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    naw! :blushing: Still have the book, ans I love that quote! Also like Watership Down and The Velveteen Rabbit.
  • sunflower8926
    sunflower8926 Posts: 485 Member
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    Hmmm... I was given JLS by my grandfather when I was a teen. I loved it, but then I loved my grandpa:heart:

    I liked Watership Down, too, but very sad. Reminds me of NIMH. Another great book with lots of touchpoints for discussion.

    But what did you take away from JLS, if anything?
  • ggabald
    ggabald Posts: 14
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    I liked the book, but what I really liked was the soundtrack to the movie. What year did the movie come out?
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,015 Member
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    Okay, as a child of the sixties, and one who spent alot of time in airplanes and under parachutes, I was initially drawn to the flying aspect which is of course, not the meaning of the novel.

    I do remember identifying with JLS because he did things differently than his family/friends/society. I'm still that way - we probably all are.
    And though I have always been a free spirit (and an only child), the imaginative lengths to which the author goes to make a point that I thought I had grasped already seemed to be over-wrought.

    I read it once - was not into meditation at the time, and I'm still not. Perhaps I'm not as evolved, or maybe I don't care to examine life that closely. I don't remember the end, but wasn't it some "cosmic revelation"?
  • stillkristi
    stillkristi Posts: 1,135 Member
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    Ok, in defense of my rather puerile ideas about JLS, I was in high school when I read it. :blushing:

    To me, the book is about overcoming our limitations and enjoying the freedom that comes with self knowledge and self love. Here are some examples from the text:

    I love this quote about Jonathan's flying lesson for a disabled gull:

    “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.”

    How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s 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!

    “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?”

    The book was made into a movie in 1973. The sound track is beautiful I love "Lonely Looking Sky" and "Be"

    He wrote several other books, which I also liked: "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" and "There's No Such Place as Far Away."

    That is quite likely far more than you wanted to know. :wink:
  • sunflower8926
    sunflower8926 Posts: 485 Member
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    No Kristi, not at all.

    I think the book left me profoundly changed, but I'm not sure I will ever be able to put my finger on why exactly.

    Part of it was the looking beyond the everyday to something more - the quest for spirituality that we all struggle with. There is a lot of philosophy and world view that I completely reject in the story. For instance, I don't believe in reincarnation, or a man-made utopia, or that we have the power to perfect ourselves. However, there is something still to be said for the quest of improving oneself, mentally, spiritually, and physically. And there is definitely something to be said for longing after something more than the basic physical needs of life.

    Maybe that's what impacted me most about the book - the idea that someone could be so captivated and enraptured with their passion that the physical world seemed trivial. We all have moments, don't we, when we become so wrapped up in something we love that we forget to eat, neglect to sleep, and can hardly bear to tear ourselves away?

    Oh, that those moments would come more often:heart:
  • stillkristi
    stillkristi Posts: 1,135 Member
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    Maslow called it self accuilization (slaughtered the spelling! :blushing: ) and Robert Fulgum, who wrote "All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden" talked about places that resonate in us. Those are places, or times when I feel most alive. One of those places is pictured in my profile. It is called FIsher Tower and is on Interstate 70 about 20 miles from Moab, Utah. I love it there! :bigsmile:

    Since you are a philosopher, here is an excerpt from Robert Fulgum:

    All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

    These are the things I learned:
    Share everything.
    Play fair.
    Don't hit people.
    Put things back where you found them.
    Clean up your own mess.
    Don't take things that aren't yours.
    Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
    Wash your hands before you eat.
    Flush.
    Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
    Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
    Take a nap every afternoon.
    When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
    Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
    Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
    And then remember the ****-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
    Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

    Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

    And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

    Have a great day, sunflower :flowerforyou:
  • sunflower8926
    sunflower8926 Posts: 485 Member
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    Hahah...Yes, I have read that book too. Sounds like we are twins, Kristi.:heart:

    How about, "I heard the Owl Call my Name"? There's another classic:wink:
  • stillkristi
    stillkristi Posts: 1,135 Member
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    That's one I haven't read. I will get on it! :wink:

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