Perfection as taught to me by ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’

I read the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull when I was 15 years old at a time in my life when I was desperately trying to adjust to going to school for the first time. Yup, the first time, for I am not like any ordinary child. I was stricken with polio at the age of one year and six months and my father, who loved me tremendously, wanted to protect me from what he felt was the tendency of young kids to be mean to those who were different, and instead of enrolling me in a big school chose to have me educated at home via a private tutor.

But I was a very precocious child who watched television a lot and from it I learned a lot of things, like how to speak English with the right intonation just by listening to the foreign speakers on TV. English became my strength and, even at a young age, I could compose songs and stories. My brother and my sister, who have just a year between them but who are 12 and 11 years older than I am, respectively, were very supportive and caring and with the love of my mother and the guidance of my father, I grew up to be a well-adjusted, very secure young person. So secure, in fact, that, at the age of 13, I told my father determinedly that I wanted to go to a regular school. Aghast but definitely not one to stand in the way of my development, my kind and loving parents sought the help of the then Bureau of Education who told them that I needed to undergo a series of tests that would determine the level I could enter in a regular school. I passed with flying colors and was told that I was eligible for first year high school. My parents and I were ecstatic. Little did I realize the difficult period of adjustment that I would have to face in the days to come.

I was enrolled at the College of the Holy Spirit on Mendiola. The kids were nice and so were the nuns but the days spent away from home in the midst of what to me seemed like hordes of strange kids all over the campus seemed too formidable at first. I wanted to give up and return to the comfort zone that I had known so well – the peace and quiet of home, of familiar things, people who loved me and cared for me. But my father, in his infinite wisdom, would tell me "Give it a month. If after one month, you still feel the same way, then we will stop making you go to the big school. But don’t give up. Soon, you will learn, you have so much more than most of those kids who are able to run and walk. The only limitations you have are those that you set on yourself."

He proved to be right and one month after I was enjoying the praises being showered on by my teachers who told me I was a very good student. Even the strange faces now seemed friendly and kinder. I was gaining friends fast and enjoying myself in the process. The years went by, then it was on to college where I graduated with a degree in Liberal Arts major in English with summa cum laude honors in 1979.

While writing about it is easy, the days that led to where I am now were a struggle. And this is why Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and his struggle for perfection, proved so real to me and touched me in a way no book had ever had at the young age of 15.

The book is an inspiring fable written in 1970 by author and aviator Richard Bach. It tells the story of a seagull determined to be more than ordinary. A best-selling modern classic, this book inspires people to follow their dreams and make their own rules to achieve their highest potential. "For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating," writes author Richard Bach. ‘For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.’ Flight is indeed the metaphor that makes this story soar. This is a fable about seeking a higher purpose in life, even if your flock, tribe or neighborhood finds your ambition threatening (at one point our beloved gull is even banished from his flock). By not compromising his higher vision, Jonathan learns the meaning of love and kindness and gets the ultimate payoff – transcendence.

To a mature reader, this book may seem a little too pretentious and lofty in its effort to parallel the life of seagulls to that of every man struggling to find meaning in life. But the concept of flight, of overcoming the physical barriers of time and space to let our spirit soar and reach its highest dimension is a concept that is universal. And to a 15-year-old struggling to overcome the physical barriers of her condition, the idea that we are limited only by what our mind tells us and by what others perceive of us is life-changing.

"Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you," says Jonathan Seagull to his young student Fletcher. "All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly!"

This was not only an affirmation of what my late father once told me, it was also my battlecry as I struggled to find my place in a society not used to seeing physically challenged people going head-to-head with everybody else. But life is good and God is fair and if one believes hard enough, all dreams can be achieved. I believe I have achieved mine.

"There are no limits, Jonathan," taught the Elder Seagull. ". . .your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself."

I say, amen.