Richard Bach
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
To the real Jonathan Seagull, who lives within us all.
Part One
It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across
the ripples of a gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing
boat chummed the water. and the word for Breakfast
Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand
seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food. It was
another busy day beginning.
But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and
shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practicing. A
hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet,
lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard
twisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that
he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was
a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath
him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held
his breath, forced one... single... more... inch... of... curve...
Then his featliers ruffled, he stalled and fell.
Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall
in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor.
But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching
his wings again in that trembling hard curve - slowing,
slowing, and stalling once more - was no ordinary bird.
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.
This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make
one's self popular with other birds. Even his parents were
dismayed as Jonathan spent whole days alone, making
hundreds of low-level glides, experimenting.
He didn't know why, for instance, but when he flew at
altitudes less than half his wingspan above the water, he
could stay in the air longer, with less effort. His glides
ended not with the usual feet-down splash into the sea,
but with a long flat wake as he touched the surface with
his feet tightly streamlined against his body. When he
began sliding in to feet-up landings on the beach, then
pacing the length of his slide in the sand, his parents
were very much dismayed indeed.
"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 alhatross? 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."
Jonathan nodded obediently. For the next few days he
tried to behave like the other gulls; he really tried,
screeching and fighting with the flock around the piers
and fishing boats, diving on scraps of fish and bread. But
he couldn't make it work.
It's all so pointless, he thought, deliberately dropping a
hard-won anchovy to a hungry old gull chasing him. I could
be spending all this time learning to fly. There's so much
to learn!
It wasn't long before Jonathan Gull was off by himself
again, far out at sea, hungry, happy, learning.
The subject was speed, and in a week's practice he
learned more about speed than the fastest gull alive.
From a thousand feet, flapping his wings as hard as he
could, he pushed over into a blazing steep dive toward
the waves, and learned why seagulls don't make blazing
steep pewer-dives. In just six seconds he was moving
seventy miles per hour, the speed at which one's wing
goes unstable on the upstroke.
Time after time it happened. Careful as he was, working
at the very peak of his ability, he lost control at high
speed.
Climb to a thousand feet. Full power straight ahead
first, then push over, flapping, to a vertical dive. Then,
every time, his left wing stalled on an upstroke, he'd roll
violently left, stall his right wing recovering, and flick like
fire into a wild tumbling spin to the right. He couldn't be
careful enough on that upstroke. Ten times he tried, and
all ten times, as he passed through seventy miles per
hour, he burst into a churning mass of feathers, out of
control, crashing down into the water.
The key, he thought at last, dripping wet, must be to
hold the wings still at high speeds - to flap up to fifty
and then hold the wings still. From two thousand feet he
tried again, rolling into his dive, beak straight down,
wings full out and stable from the moment he passed
fifty miles per hour. It took tremendous strength, but it
worked. In ten seconds he had blurred through ninety
miles per hour. Jonathan had set a world speed record
for seagulls!
But victory was short-lived. The instant he began his
pullout, the instant he changed the angle of his wings, he
snapped into that same terrible uncontrolled disaster,
and at ninety miles per hour it hit him like dynamite.
Jonathan Seagull exploded in midair and smashed down
into a brickhard sea.
When he came to, it was well after dark, and he floated
in moonlight on the surface of the ocean. His wings were
ragged bars of lead, but the weight of failure was even
heavier on his back. He wished, feebly, that the weight
could be just enough to drug him gently down to the
bottom, and end it all.
As he sank low in the water, a strange hollow voice
sounded within him. There's no way around it. I am a
seagull. I am limited by my nature. If I were meant to
learn so much about flying, I'd have charts for brains. If
I were meant to fly at speed, I'd have a falcon's short
wings, and live on mice instead of fish. My father was
right. I must forget this foolishness. I must fly home to
the Flock and be content as I am, as a poor limited
seagull.
The voice faded, and Jonathan agreed. The place for a
seagull at night is on shore, and from this moment forth,
he vowed, he would be a normal gull. It would make
everyone happier.
He pushed wearily away from the dark water and flew
toward the land, grateful for what he had learned about
work-saving low-altitude flying. But no, he thought. I am
done with the way I was, I am done with everything I
learned. I am a seagull like every other seagull, and I will
fly like one. So he climbed painfully to a hundred feet and
flapped his wings harder, pressing for shore.
He felt better for his decision to be just another one of
the Flock. There would be no ties now to the force that
had driven him to learn, there would be no more challenge
and no more failure. And it was pretty, just to stop
thinking, and fly through the dark, toward the lights
above the beach.
Dark! The hollow voice cracked in alarm. Seagulls never
fly in the dark!
Jonathan was not alert to listen. It's pretty, he
thought. The moon and the lights twinkling on the water,
throwing out little beacon-trails through the night, and
all so peaceful and still...
Get down! Seagulls never fly in the dark! If you were
meant to fly in the dark, you'd have the eyes of an owl!
You'd have charts for brains! You'd have a falcon's short
wings!
There in the night, a hundred feet in the air, Jonathan
Livingston Seagull - blinked. His pain, his resolutions,
vanished.
Short wings. A falcon's short wings!
That's the answer! What a fool I've been! All I need is
a tiny little wing, all I need is to fold most of my wings
and fly on just the tips alone! Short wings!
He climbed two thousand feet above the black sea, and
without a moment for thought of failure and death, he
brought his forewings tightly in to his body, left only the
narrow swept daggers of his wingtips extended into the
wind, and fell into a vertical dive.
The wind was a monster roar at his head. Seventy miles
per hour, ninety, a hundred and twenty and faster still.
The wing-strain now at a hundred and forty miles per
hour wasn't nearly as hard as it had been before at
seventy, and with the faintest twist of his wingtips he
eased out of the dive and shot above the waves, a gray
cannonball under the moon.
He closed his eyes to slits against the wind and rejoiced.
A hundred forty miles per hour! And under control! If I
dive from five thousand feet instead of two thousand, I
wonder how fast..
His vows of a moment before were forgotten, swept
away in that great swift wind. Yet he felt guiltless,
breaking the promises he had made himself. Such
promises are only for the gulls that accept the ordinary.
One who has touched excellence in his learning has no
need of that kind of promise.
By sunup, Jonathan Gull was practicing again. From five
thousand feet the fishing boats were specks in the flat
blue water, Breakfast Flock was a faint cloud of dust
motes, circling.
He was alive, trembling ever so slightly with delight,
proud that his fear was under control. Then without
ceremony he hugged in his forewings, extended his short,
angled wingtips, and plunged direcfly toward the sea. By
the time he passed four thousand feet he had reached
terminal velocity, the wind was a solid beating wall of
sound against which he could move no faster. He was
flying now straight down, at two hundred fourteen miles
per hour. He swallowed, knowing that if his wings
unfolded at that speed be'd be blown into a million tiny
shreds of seagull. But the speed was power, and the
speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty.
He began his pullout at a thousand feet, wingtips
thudding and blurring in that gigatitic wind, the boat and
the crowd of gulls tilting and growing meteor-fast,
directly in his path.
He couldn't stop; he didn't know yet even how to turn at
that speed. Collision would be instant death.
And so he shut his eyes.
It happened that morning, then, just after sunrise, that
Ionathan Livingston Seagull fired directly through the
center of Breakfast Flock, ticking off two hundred
twelve miles per hour, eyes closed, in a great roaring
shriek of wind and feathers. The Gull of Fortune smiled
upon him this once, and no one was killed.
By the time he had pulled his beak straight up into the
sky he was still scorching along at a hundred and sixty
miles per hour. When he had slowed to twenty and
stretched his wings again at last, the boat was a crumb
on the sea, four thousand feet below.
His thought was triumph. Terminal velocity! A seagull at
two hundred fourteen miles per hour! It was a
breakthrough, the greatest single moment in the history
of the Flock, and in that moment a new age opened for
Jonathan Gull. Flying out to his lonely practice area,
folding his wings for a dive from eight thousand feet, he
set himself at once to discover how to turn.
A single wingtip feather, he found, moved a fraction of
an inch, gives a smooth sweeping curve at tremendous
speed. Before he learned this, however, he found that
moving more than one feather at that speed will spin you
like a ritIe ball... and Jonathan had flown the first
aerobatics of any seagull on earth.
He spared no time that day for talk with other gulls, but
flew on past sunset. He discovered the loop, the slow roll,
the point roll, the inverted spin, the gull bunt, the
pinwheel.
When Jonathan Seagull joined the Flock on the beach, it
was full night. He was dizzy and terribly tired. Yet in
delight he flew a loop to landing, with a snap roll just
before touchdown. When they hear of it, he thought, of
the Breakthrough, they'll be wild with joy. How much
more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging
forth and back to the fishing boats, there's a 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!
The years ahead hummed and glowed with promise. The
gulls were flocked into the Council Gathering when he
landed, and apparently had been so flocked for some
time. They were, in fact, waiting. "Jonathan Livingston
Seagull! Stand to Center!" The Elder's words sounded in a
voice of highest ceremony. Stand to Center meant only
great shame or great honor. Stand to Center for Honor
was the way the gulls' foremost leaders were marked. Of
course, he thought, the Breakfast Flock this morning;
they saw the Breakthrough! But I want no honors. I have
no wish to be leader. I want only to share what I've
found, to show those horizons out ahead for us all. He
stepped forward.
"Jonathan Livingston Seagull," said the Elder, "Stand to
Center for Shame in the sight of your fellow gulls!"
It felt like being hit with a board. His knees went weak,
his feathers sagged, there was roaring in his ears.
Centered for shame? Impossible! The Breakthrough!
They can't understand! They're wrong, they're wrong!
"... for his reckless irresponsibility " the solemn voice
intoned, "violating the dignity and tradition of the Gull
Family..."
To be centered for shame meant that he would be cast
out of gull society, banished to a solitary life on the Far
Cliffs.
"... 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."
A seagull never speaks back to the Council Flock, but it
was Jonathan's voice raised. "Irresponsibility? My
brothers!" he cried. "Who is more responsible than a gull
who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for
life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish
heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to
discover, to be free! Give me one chance, let me show you
what I've found..."
The Flock might as well have been stone.
"The Brotherhood is broken," the gulls intoned
together, and with one accord they solemnly closed their
ears and turned their backs upon him. Jonathan Seagull
spent the rest of his days alone, but he flew way out
beyond the Far Cliffs. His one sorrow was not solituile, it
was that other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight
that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and
see. He learned more each day. He learned that a
streamlined high-speed dive could bring him to find the
rare and tasty fish that schooled ten feet below the
surface of the ocean: he no longer needed fishing boats
and stale bread for survival. He learned to sleep in the
air, setting a course at night across the offshore wind,
covering a hundred miles from sunset to sunrise. With
the same inner control, he flew through heavy sea-fogs
and climbed above them into dazzling clear skies... in the
very times when every other gull stood on the ground,
knowing nothing but mist and rain. He learned to ride the
high winds far iniand, to dine there on delicate insects.
What he had once hoped for the Flock, he now gained
for himself alone; he learned to fly, and was not sorry for
the price that he had paid. Jonathan Scagull 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.
They came in the evening, then, and found Ionathan
gliding peaceful and alone through his beloved sky. The
two gulls that appeared at his wings were pure as
starlight, and the glow from them was gentle and friendly
in the high night air. But most lovely of all was the skill
with which they flew, their wingtips moving a precise and
constant inch from his own. Without a word, Jonathan
put them to his test, a test that no gull had ever passed.
He twisted his wings, slowed to a single mile per hour
above stall. The two radiant birds slowed with him,
smoothly, locked in position. They knew about slow flying.
He folded his wings, rolled and dropped in a dive to a
hundred ninety miles per hour. They dropped with him,
streaking down in flawless formation.
At last he turned that speed straight up into a long
vertical slow-roll. They rolled with him, smiling.
He recovered to level flight and was quiet for a time
before he spoke. "Very well," he said, "who are you?"
"We're from your Flock, Jonathan. We are your
brothers." The words were strong and calm. "We've come
to take you higher, to take you home."
"Home I have none. Flock I have none. I am Outcast.
And we fly now at the peak of the Great Mountain Wind.
Beyond a few hundred feet, I can lift this old body no
higher."
"But you can Jonathan. For you have learned. One school
is finished, and the time has come for another to begin."
As it had shined across him all his life, so understanding
lighted that moment for Jonathan Seagull. They were
right. He could fly higher, and it was time to go home.
He gave one last look across the sky, across that
magnificent silver land where he had learned so much.
"I'm ready " he said at last.
And Jonathan Livingston Seagull rose with the two
starbright gulls to disappear into a perfect dark sky.
Part Two
So this is heaven, he thought, and he had to smile at
himself. It was hardly respectful to analyze heaven in the
very moment that one flies up to enter it.
As he came from Earth now, above the clouds and in
close formation with the two brilliant gulls, he saw that
his own body was growing as bright as theirs. True, the
same young Jonathan Seagull was there that had always
lived behind his golden eyes, but the outer form had
changed. It felt like a seagull body, but alreadv it flew
far better than his old one had ever flown. Why, with
half the effort, he thought, I'll get twice the speed,
twice the performance of my best days on Earth!
His feathers glowed brilliant white now, and his wings
were smooth and perfect as sheets of polished silver. He
began, delightedly, to learn about them, to press power
into these new wings.
At two hundred fifty mlles per hour he felt that he was
nearing his level-flight maximum speed. At two hundred
seventy-three he thought that he was flying as fast as he
could fly, and he was ever so faintly disappointed. There
was a limit to how much the new body could do, and
though it was much faster than his old level-flight
record, it was still a limit that would take great effort to
crack. In heaven, he thought, there should be no limits.
The clouds broke apart, his escorts called, "Happy
landings, Jonathan," and vanished into thin air.
He was flying over a sea, toward a jagged shoreline. A
very few seagulls were working the updrafts on the
cliffs. Away off to the north, at the horizon itself, flew a
few others. New sights, new thoughts, new questions.
Why so few gulls? Heaven should be flocked with gulls!
And why am I so tired, all at once? Gulls in heaven are
never supposed to be tired, or to sleep.
Where had he heard that? The memory of his life on
Earth was falling away. Earth had been a place where he
had learned much, of course, but the details were blurred
- something about fighting for food, and being Outcast.
The dozen gulls by the shoreline came to meet him, none
saying a word. He felt only that he was welcome and that
this was home. It had been a bigday for him, a day whose
sunrise he no longer remembered.
He turned to land on the beac
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