Practicing
Jonathan Livingston’s aim of life is not to surviving, but to fly. Flying is his favorite occupation, and he is doing his best to achieve success. Jonathan knows that only practice makes perfect, so he never stops practicing. “A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet, lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard twisting curve through his wings” – it is what Jonathan is doing day after day. For a seagull “a curve meant that he would fly slowly”, and being a seagull Jonathan knows it, but he “slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one... single... more... inch... of... curve... Then his featliers ruffled, he stalled and fell”. The image show how hard Jonathan is trying to make flying enjoyable. He never gives up and achieves so desired success.
Flying in the dark
It is known that seagulls are birds of a day, not of a night, and they never fly in dark. But Jonathan Livingston is not an ordinary seagull, he is a seagull who breaks prejudices, and for him flying in the dark “is pretty”, and he “stops thinking, and flies through the dark, toward the lights above the beach”. “The moon and the lights twinkling on the water, throwing out little beacon-trails through the night, and all so peaceful and still...” – it is the picture Jonathan is watching, and it makes him peaceful.
Philosophy of freedom
With time Jonathan manages to get more and more students, “outcasts all, yet curious about this strange new idea of flight for the joy of flying”. These students became persuaded by the success of Jonathan himself, and mostly by success of Fletcher. But they did not quite understand what the idea of “flight for the joy of flying” was holding behind it. This philosophy was strange for them , and it is Jonathan who helps to understand that flight is “an unlimited idea of freedom”.
