Aubade #9 – Jonathan Livingston Seagull… (The Last Part Though)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a story about courage, belief in oneself, and how if you want it badly enough, you’ll learn to fly. Period. Happy ending. It seems simple: be Jonathan, don’t be an ordinary seagull, and everything in your life will be fine.

And then, completely by accident, I discovered that there is a fourth part. A chapter that the author himself “exiled,” thinking it was superfluous. A manuscript found 50 years later, which he restored in 2013, wasn’t even in my physical book. When I found out about the last part, I barely managed to find an electronic version of the book. And when I read it, my entire ideal, “Disney-like” perception was shattered! I collided with a bitter, unbearable reality.

This new chapter wasn’t a fairytale anymore. It was a cruel, painful parable. A story about what happens to a revolution when it turns into a religion. How living flight turns into a dead ritual. How the followers start arguing not about flying, but about what color Jonathan’s eyes were. How the idea of freedom becomes a dogma that, once again, restricts.

And in all this, I saw not just seagulls, but… I don’t know… everything. Our society, our relationships, even our own selves. How many times have we turned our own idea of freedom into a dogma? How many times have we forgotten the main thing – the flight itself?

And I realized that Richard Bach’s “mistake,” not publishing this chapter initially, was actually his greatest stroke of genius. Without this last part, “Jonathan” would have just been a beautiful fairytale. With this part, it became… life.

It became a warning and, at the same time, a hope. A hope that after every worn-out, distorted belief and tradition, a new Anthony will always be born, who will say: “I’m tired of your rituals. I want to fly!”

And maybe, this is the main mission for us “outcasts” – to be those Anthonys who constantly remind the world that the main thing isn’t worshiping idols, but flying.

Constant, unending flight.