Lessons from a seagull

Have not picked up a book for quite a while...knowing the quickie that I've become. Tend to skim and scan these days...bad habit. But this was thrust on me by a friend..... It's quite light reading; interesting. Something along the line of Who Moved My Cheese kinda book. It's an old book, published in the 70s. Was quite a hit then.

Story is about a gull by the name of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. In this book, most of the gulls don't bother learning more than just the simplest facts of flight. To be able to fly, for them was basically just enough for them to get from shore to food and back again. Jonathan was different. He wanted to fly ... and fly really well. So he put his heart into the art of flying. He learned it so well that he set a speed record for the gulls... He wanted to teach the other gulls to fly well but his quest for excellence and unwillingness to conform to the mediocre ways of the gulls caused him to be made an outcast.

A creature in pursuit of excellence has no place in the flock. So he moved on to another plane of existence where he found a new flock of excellence. There, he continued to learn and excel. But finally, out of love, he decided to go back to his old world to share his knowledge with his original flock.

Fear of his new ways and also the threat of expulsion by the council of elders kept the rest of the flock from him. But eventually some were won over...and one of his students took over the teaching and became the teacher after Jonathan left.

This is one way of looking at the book....I can think of others but since I'm in the socio-political mode now; here goes....
As I was reading it, I drew a parallel comparison of the behaviour of the herd of gulls to our socio-political situation. We now know that NEP has shackled whole generations of our people, putting them on crutches. Yet, when we have people like Zaid Ibrahim (former Law Minister) speaking out against them, you can sense 'fear' in the people to move out and explore their own abilities. Zaid can be likened to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.... encouraging the Bumis to learn to excel on their own accord, to fly and reach out for the skies... but what he says and does are frowned upon by his own people....considered breaching what has been 'law' for ages.

And also like the herd of gulls who watched silently and hidden in the shadows, wanting to strike out on their own while Jonathan tried to encourage them, we have too have many of our own by the sidelines feeling the same. However,they fear that if they speak out, they will be made outcasts by their own, even though they see the good that removing the crutches will result.

We could learn a lesson or two from Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

So, though this is another one of those quickies...it's worth a read. What was written almost 3 decades ago actually reflect somewhat the state of our nation today.... My two sen today!