Review of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

In this age of globalization, where every event, news, story travels thousands of miles at the speed of thought, we are confronted with new ideas, possibilities and innovations every minute. But at times, there comes along a book, an article, a happening, which makes us sit back and think. It makes us wonder about the meaning of our lives and what we want to achieve. Such a piece of writing is “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”. In this novella, Richard Bach presents his philosophy of life and how it should be lived.
The book revolves around Jonathan Livingston. All seagulls believe that the only purpose of life is to eat in order to survive. According to them, flying is only a means to this end. You need to learn how to fly in order to be able to fight for food with the other gulls. According to Jonathan, on the other hand, flying is the bigger or rather the only purpose of life. He spends all his time learning about new flying techniques, in the hope of achieving perfection. The rest of the flock judges this behavior to be unacceptable and he is banned from the flock, for bringing shame upon them. Jonathan accepts his life as an outcast, and continues to practice flying. Repeated
practice, an unwavering spirit, and continued effort teach him a lot. With each new skill, he challenges what he has learnt before. One day, he is taken by a group of gulls to a higher plane of existence, where he meets gulls with similar motivations. All the gulls here are engaged in active pursuit of perfection, as they work hard to master the art of flying. Jonathan Livingston learns that all gulls are free and he is only limited by his thoughts. He befriends the wisest gull in this new place, named Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching 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”. Not satisfied with his new life, Jonathan now returns to
Earth to teach others like him. He spreads his love for flight and gathers a dedicated group who are as passionate about flying as him. He further goes back to his old flock and with the help of his new students, illustrates his meaning in life. This inspires more gulls to leave the flock and to be a part of this new group, which strives for selfperfection. Jonathan nominates his first student, Fletcher, as the new leader and leaves to continue upon his path of learning and to help more gulls by showing them the way to a more meaningful life. All this helps him understand the meaning of love and leads him to his true destiny.
Jonathan Livingston stays true to what he believes in. He knows what he wants from life, and he works hard at it. Even though he is left all alone to fend for himself, rendered an outcast, he does not submit to the norms of society. According to him, his beliefs are more important than anything else in the world. And he has the courage to live by them. There is a famous saying, ”What would a man gain if he sells his soul”.
In the book, Jonathan exhibits a hunger for learning, a passion to excel. He wants to learn more and more each day. For him, flying presents a million different possibilities and he wishes to explore them. Without worrying about the consequences, and even at the cost of his life, he keeps trying, in order to learn more, in order to reach where he must. Jonathan Livingston is not willing to accept defeat. In the beginning, when he experiments with speed flying, he understands that there is something he is not doing right. But, he also accepts that sooner or later he will get it right.
Once he learns all the techniques of flight and fulfillment, Jonathan realizes that he wishes to share them with the rest of the flock. As a result, he comes back to the flock he has been banished from and takes some students under his wing, in order to empower and teach them all he knows. Despite all that he achieves, Jonathan Livingston is portrayed as a very humble being, who wants to share what he knows, but does not wish to be given any extra credit for it, or to be held in high esteem because of this. According to him, he is living his true destiny and being what he is, what he needs to be. This does not call for any reverence or any special treatment by others. Life is not just about being recognized, or achieving things valued by society. It is about living the way you wish to life, it is about working for what matters to you, and what you want to achieve.

The End

And the beginning and the end was always there, before the beginning and after the end.

And why do I feel that the world is coming to an end over me
And why do I feel life just cant go on.
What to write and what not to write
The better u do the more u expect
Can one ever be satisfied.
If not a quest yet what else is life
A need to be the best, a need to improve, always.
A need to do, to make to deliver
The day wont close the night wont open
Its like an endless mire,
a road to nowhere, a lane to forever
and what all, and what more and what less
and what not

To 2

To make the most of what comes by
To never utter a word in regret
To work and never repent
To love and not worry about being hurt
To give and yet not expect in return
To try and and not rest till having achieved
To know your worth yet not shout it out
To rise above all yet remember to look down
To help all yet not depend on anyone
To be the best and yet strive for more

To

To write for the hands will,
to write for the heart commands,
to write for I need to
and not just
because I want to,
to move my hands
because a force moves them,
to go on
because I have the energy to, to live
because life was meant to,
to sing
because words wont be stifled, to dance
because the feet wont stand still, to speak
because the voice beckons,
to love
because its so beautiful,
to be,
because its so good to.

Upheavals

Life is not without its upheavals,
Love is not without its sorrows,
Man is not without his woes

Hand in hand they come,
Joy and sorrow together,
Can one ever be true,
Without the other lurking close behind!

Can life ever be complete,
Without all it is made of there,
Can happiness ever be full,
Without the pinch of salt to taste.
The bittersweet tastes better
The tang makes things merrier!!

Gathered musings

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing what to do is the worst kind of suffering.

Son los lacos que inventron al amor
It must have been the lunatics who invented love.

Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again.

Anyone who can conquer her heart can conquer the world.

The wise are wise only because they love. And the foolish are foolish only because they think they can understand love.

The reason death sticks so closely to life is not biological necessity-its envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life slowly jumps over oblivion, forgetting only a thing or two of slight importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

Change your past

If given a choice, would you like to go back and change your past? I know none of us have had a perfect life. There have always been things which you could have done without, there must have always been situations you wished you were not in. There must have been incidents which can still give you nightmares. But, as a friend told me yesterdat, its when you go through shit that you learn the most. Its not the fondest memories that make a man, but the most hated ones. When you wish so hard, so hard that you wake up every morning believing you are in a new world, and yet, see the same old life, the same old problems, the life with no ready solutions. The times when you hate what is happening around you and think if, just if I can get out of this, I will make a better life. These are the times that make you what you are. These are the times that teach you what life is all about. Someone told me, you cannot go back and change your past, but you can change your interpretation of it, you can change the future you want to build with that experience. True, I cannot go back and change it, but now when I look back upon how much I have seen, what all I have gone through and how I have changed as a person because of these experiences, I am not sure I want to, in fact I am sure I don't want to. I am happy with the life I have built,or rather the way life and situations haev shaped me. Much as I keep complaining about it, a bad habit which refuses to go away....I love my life. Love is about acceptance, another one said, I say, life is about acceptance. Life will always bring you surprises. Even when you have everything planned and decided, and do not believe there is any way it can go wrong, life will roll a new pair of dice, and there you will be, caught unaware. And the way you react then is what says a lot about you. Now you can chose to fight the situation you are in, you can chose to curse the deal you have been dealt, but trust me boss, these are the cards you have and these are the cards you will play with. Now you can chose to keep complaining, or you can chose to accept it. And that is what life is all about, acceptance. So do not try to change your past, or your future, or your interpretation, learn to accept it.

When does life begin

They say life doesn’t end when someone dies. I wonder when does life begin.
When u meet that someone special or when u are searching for him.
When u stand at the seashore and wonder how I happened to be alone here or when u stand in his arms and wonder how life was going on without him
When the end and the beginning and the present all seem to be one, or when the moment u are living seems suspended in time
When happiness seems a mere mirage and sorrow the only reality in life
Or when it all seems so beautiful that even a spot of dirt would smear it.
When u feel that being alone was the only thing u were intended for
Or when u feel the best is yet to come
Why is tragedy always so profound and so full of meaning
While comedy so much like a farce