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Trump is no Jonathan Livingston Seagull... In the age of Virus

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.

Canadian Banks have no sense of common good...

The Common Good

I believe that in Canada we are doing a commendable job in “flattening the curve.”  Services we once took for granted such as low wage earners who serve as cashiers, couriers, truck drivers and so many more who have kept the supply chains open are now more honoured.  Nurses, doctors, paramedics and other front line workers in this war are viewed as super heroes.  Jokes and memes are written about how the apparent slothfulness of staying at home is now serving to save the nation, another necessary ingredient to defeat the virus.

Every level of government, practically every citizen has a sense of the common good and what it takes to come out the other end of this crisis with our health and our economy…everyone in fact with the glaring exceptions of banks and bankers.  Although not fully the bad guy in this situation they are deferring mortgage loans which offers some form of short term relief. Thank you.

Keep in mind though that banks do not defer the interest on a mortgage that simply gets tacked on to the original principal  such that interest will be paid on that sum a second time and extend the amortization of the mortgage by another half year or so.  In this way banks can actually profit on our crisis while everyone else who understands sacrifice and common good actually sacrifices.  Not Canadian Banks.

Their excuse seems to be that, “We are in uncharted water.”  Join the club aren’t we all, the only time they have a sense of common good leads them to social inaction.

If this is a war-like situation and banks are profiteering what does that make them?

Ontario Teachers' Strikes

Teachers’ Strikes

If you look at the teachers’ strikes, from a parental perspective, through a short term lens, it is easy to be highly critical of teachers.  Typically parents, thinking short term, think of their own personal inconvenience for finding child care alternatives during the teachers’ strikes; then thoughts  quickly and unfairly leap to “those lazy-over- paid -under- worked- teachers with two months holidays”.  It is easy to be critical.

Some parents are often eager to have their children gone from home after the summer holidays because they lack the creativity, energy, or patience to actively engage their own children. Perhaps, these parents have to decide if teachers really have it easy, or teaching is actually more difficult than most people think. You can’t say teachers’ have it too easy and at the same time be over-whelmed while temporarily attending to your own children.  You can’t have it both ways.

Bottom line is teaching is tough.  Especially in the face of cut backs and lack of supports in the class room. More parents must see long term and opt for an education system that is rigorous and produces the type of people who are resilient, civil, kind, insightful, literate and useful.  Our Conservative government, by policy, cuts costs and corners to achieve their ideal of efficiency.  As parents, and in the wider society, we have to realize some corners just can’t be cut.  The teachers’ are not the problem here.

If we look to the United States for an example as to what cost cutting in public education can do, there is your model, that is your answer.  Support the strikes, even if they are inconvenient, support the teachers, for what they do is the foundation for everything as your children really are the future.

Marty Rempel

Teachers' Strikes Ontario

Teachers’ Strikes

If you look at the teachers’ strikes, from a parental perspective, through a short term lens, it is easy to be highly critical of teachers.  Typically parents, thinking short term, think of their own personal inconvenience for finding child care alternatives; then thoughts  quickly leap to those lazy-over- paid -under- worked- teachers with two months holidays.  Those teachers have it so easy.

Some parents are often eager to have their children gone from home after holidays because they lack the creativity, energy or resources to actively engage their own children. Perhaps, these parents have to decide if teachers really have it easy, or meaningful educational engagement with young people is actually challenging business. It can’t go both ways.

Bottom line is teaching is tough. More parents must see long term and opt for an education system that is rigorous and produces the type of people who are resilient, civil, kind, insightful and useful.  Our Conservative government, by policy cuts costs and corners to achieve their ideal of efficiency.  As parents, and in the wider society we have to realize some corners just can’t be cut.

If we look to the United States for an example as to what cost cutting in public education can do, there is your model, that is your answer.

Recently, I listened to President Donald Trump give a speech on wind generators.  I thought it might have been written by a 8 year old boy.  The man has no insights, understanding or expressive language.  He is handicapped.  He and conservatives like him represent the worst of values and like our own conservatives see education as a political tool to keep the masses ignorant.  We can't have this in Canada.

Support the strikes,  even if they are inconvenient.  Support the teachers because what they do is the foundation for everything we do.