I reread this classic book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, after many decades and see its application to leadership during crisis...
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a book about potential, about dreamers, about passion and the meaning of life. That’s quite a lot for a little book about an ordinary Seagull who teaches himself to be extraordinary. This is a book for anyone who is a dreamer with a passion that doesn’t fit into the pack. I had the occasion to revisit this gem of a book during the isolation of virus and found some new applications for the lessons presented by this enigmatic gull.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull doesn’t feel like he fits in with the rest of the flock. They spar and care only for food, flocking around the fishing boats in the hope of picking up scraps of fish and bread, while Jonathan Livingston Seagull flies by himself working on his skills of flight.
Seagulls are not known for being graceful flyers, or for being fast or agile, but Jonathan Livingston Seagull is fascinated by these things. He spends hours trying to fly faster, higher or more spectacular ways. He would rather do that than eat. For him flight is a special thing. It is the purest of joys. It is the thing that when he does it he feels most himself. And he becomes something quite extraordinary. But the flock does not like this, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull is exiled to live by himself.
This is a story about an ordinary Seagull who goes on an extraordinary journey. He embarks on a journey from one place to another geographically, but rather the real journey is a personal one. This is a story about what it takes to explore one’s passion and to master a skill. But if that was all the book was about it might not have made Jonathan Livingston Seagull the fabled classic that has become.
What sets it apart is that Jonathan Livingston Seagull is about a spiritual journey as well. The story very much follows the path of Jesus Christ, although that’s not really what the stories about. It is about how someone can be ordinary and make themselves become exceptional, and that that truth lies in everyone. However this is no easy thing, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull runs through all the ways that most people react to the extraordinary.
People, like gulls find it difficult to make change. Often we are ruled by the need for stability and a need for the status quo. Many people, especially those more conservative in thought have difficulty embracing new ideas and evolving themselves and therefore society to a higher plane. These people are against abortion, gays getting married, universal health care and subsidized tuition for starters. People of this mind set generally live by fear and emotion not analytical thought. It is the difference between what divides liberal and conservative.
In the process of his personal evolution Jonathan becomes an outcast, when he transcends ordinary gulls. Later he then returns to them and he is regarded with suspicion. Slowly Jonathan gains the small, loyal following of close students who learn from him and pass on his knowledge, which has become theirs. When Jonathan Livingston Seagull finally leaves, his exceptionalism is turned into extraordinary supernatural abilities. The gull is turned into a God, and what he had achieved becomes the acts of deity and not of any ordinary Seagull.
The message is lost. But in every generation there are new goals to discover the secret of exploring their passion and developing it through hard work, and so Jonathan Livingston Seagull’s message lives on potentially in everyone willing to look and work hard enough who embrace change and seek to assist the "greater good."
To me the story which I first read some 47 years ago was all of the above, but when I read it again today in the midst of the corona virus and the isolation we are all experiencing it became a story of leadership. In Canada I am pleased with our leadership, for the most part, but remain fearful of what is happening in the United States.
If I extend the comparison to Jonathan Livingston Seagull the flock represents the cult of unthinking squabbling Trump followers. They are mindless followers who do not wish to raise themselves up from ignorance and lies. Any lessons from a Jonathan are likely lost on them as many of them are more fulfilled by threatening front line workers during an epidemic.
“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.”
When leaders strive to build a flock mentality and reduce innovation and curiosity in the process, they are not true leaders. Leadership means maintaining the stability of the flock while going beyond its limits by improving the individual and therefore the group, that happens through education primarily allowing people the freedom to analyze, to doubt the "party line" and go beyond.
" I am limited by my nature. If I were meant to learn so much about flying, I'd have charts for brains."
This quote represents group think and breeds doubt while a true leader works to break this cycle of negative thinking. Generally, Conservative leaders do the opposite, usually for their own power and egos they assemble a loyal flock, or base and build the flock mentality to the point that society as a whole begins to stagnate and move backwards. America today.
"for a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live, to discover, to be free!...
Jonathan breaks with the flock and traditional thinking and excels those who are ready to be the stimulus and the examples to model a new society different and better than the flock. A way of life geared to improving life for all not just an elite.
What is needed is a leadership that will raise the flock above the basics of survival to understand and achive higher levels of their potential. Instead, Trump is a seagull who keeps the flock divided and petty and flying to get scraps for survival. America needs a Jonathan, even a Biden would be a positive transition.
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