My Beautiful Piece of Art

We often seek out opportunities to acquire insights from our experiences, occasions, movies, books, and the people we meet. 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' is one such book that I believe provides people with an alternate path that they may not have ever seriously considered, or believed possible. It is a fable that romanticises life, without taking out the reality. The result is a beautiful piece of art that people experience rather than read.

The novella is a fable written by author Richard Bach. It talks about a seagull who wishes to learn about life by perfecting his skill in flying. The story starts off with Jonathan Livingston Seagull thinking why seagulls never tried to improve their flying. They know flying just enough to go to the sea, catch food, and return to the shore. Jonathan wants to dedicate his life to perfecting something, the rest of the flock doesn't agree with this, characterises it as unnatural behaviour and expels him. From there on, the story focuses solely on Jonathan, his will to achieve perfecting in flying, how he achieves it and how it affects his old flock. The fable was published as a series of mini-stories in a magazine and finally published as a collective book in the 1970s.

This piece is creative because it takes something small, something simple and expands it to something we would have never imagined. The story starts with how Jonathan simply wishes to learn how to fly better and he does it for his own pleasure. From there on Bach takes it to places one couldn't have even imagined when they started reading the story. Jonathan later in the story flies so well that he transcends into a higher plane of reality, "... Jonathan Livingston Seagull rose with the two starbright gulls to disappear into a perfect dark sky." (Pg 37) He meets other like-minded seagulls who fly for the pleasure of it and are constantly trying to perfect their skills simply because they want to. Jonathan then tries to return to Earth and teach a new generation of seagulls the pleasure of flying and how they aren't limited. The effect of which results in Jonathan transcending again, but also that his old flock now considering some sort of god. "Crowds of gulls elbowed in upon Fletcher, to touch the one who had touched Jonathan Seagull, a bird they now considered divine." (Pg 99) We see how societal change comes in place, which is bach trying to show how humans behave in their entirety when faced with something that they never saw before. The flock eventually just resorts to worshipping Jonathan and his disciples instead of actually trying to perfect their flying skills. This proves to be a slippery slope as they once again revert to their old set-in-stone ways which Jonathan wanted to prevent in the first place. From there on a new seagull tries to question these old ideas and is consequently also expelled, thus restarting the whole cycle again.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was a hit in the United States when it was released as a book, and after reading the book it is easy for me to see why. This book is a fantastical composition of words that really makes a person think. Jonathan himself goes so far as to say, "Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly." (Pg 90) It's a simple quote, but that's also why it is so effective. There are many more quotes like this which are just as moving if not more. People really loved this book, even so, it didn't come with its own set of criticisms, being called "...a book so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would have seen right through it" (Ebert, Roger).

Paintings rarely state their message explicitly, they are more known for their subtlety and much of their message is up to speculation. Literature can choose whether it wants to be explicit or not, and even then it can have a third option for itself where it walks this line that crosses both these realms. Jonathan Livingston Seagull walks that line, it has such a strong suggestion to the message that it leaves you wondering if the book gave you this message almost placing it in your head or if you derived it yourself. That, including the artful story of the novella, is why I think that this fable is a beautiful piece of art.

When I talk about the impact of this book, it isn't just me who has been affected positively. Millions of people read this book and responded positively, and near uniformly. People have always had this clear line of what is fantasy and what is reality, this was the same case for Jonathan too. But the book has such an impact on its readers that it gives them this impulse to do something that they have always had an interest in, but never the courage to do. It becomes an inspiration to people and gets them to think. If a humble seagull can follow his dreams to achieve a simple goal, but perfect it such that he becomes something altogether new, even after being shunned by his equivalent of society, why can't I do the same? This emotion that they feel is humbling and empowering. Much like a painting or a piece of music, it evokes these feelings inside of the reader that transfer this knowledge of beauty and refinement that they too can achieve. That they too can be like Jonathan if they give it their all.

By now it is clear to see that this story of Bach's was meant to be a motivation to people, in fact, it was also marketed to people in the United States as a "self-help" book. Keeping in mind the fact that this novella is not only characterised as a "self-help" book but also as a piece of art, many questions arise from this interesting convergence of different ideas. We come up with knowledge questions like: Should art be used as reasons or ways of motivation for people to make decisions in real life? Art is often something that doesn't necessarily represent real-life. So is it still logically comprehensible for people to be inspired by art and to base their values off of it? Humans are very emotional beings, the slightest of unbalance in our emotions can make us feel horrendous and make us do things in the heat of the moment, that we wouldn't have done otherwise normally. If it all comes down to something that "moved" a person into doing something that they later would regret, can emotion and intuition be used by art in an ethically valid manner to affect the very real lives of people? These are all questions that people should rationally think about and consider before looking at pieces of art. Artists are, after all, used by dictators to produce propaganda, to manipulate people. So if a state can do it, why can't an artist do the same independently?

But this is not the case in real life. In real life, artists rarely make such drastic pieces of work that results in us rarely giving any thought to these questions. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a simple albeit whimsical story about a seagull who wanted more from life, so he went to after it and he got it. Richard Bach may not know it, but what he created 50 years ago, is still just as groundbreaking as it was then.