At The Water's Edge
Looking For Clues 4: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
When I was in London, I felt I was in exactly the right place at the right time and who knows where it may have led. I didn't even consider that there maybe an alternative to returning to university, as it seemed to offer the best security for my future; I didn't question it. There was inevitability about going back, (not unlike death!) But once I was back, I realised I wasn't as happy as I had been for the nine months previous. Not only that, but trying to fit in with the crowd that I had been with before and who had been a major part of the previous year, didn't work. We'd all moved on in different directions and to be fair, I was probably a bit full of myself having had such a good time in London. The "reality of life" is that you have to "buckle down" and that's what I tried to do. I probably tried too hard and in hindsight I suspect was close to a nervous breakdown. Lou Reed's line "Some people work very hard, but still they never get it right" continues to reverberate all these years later. I had to prove I wasn't some "slacker dropout" and had to make my time at university count and be a success. But all the time I felt like I was living in the shadows, always swimming upstream, trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
One weekend of the first autumn term I went home. On the Saturday, just before the shops closed, I decided to buy a book about my favourite band Roxy Music that I had had my eye on for a couple of years but had resisted from buying because I thought it was a bit extravagant in my financial situation as a student. I guess it was a bit of retail therapy trying to get rid of the ennui I was feeling at that time. Whilst in the bookshop (W.H. Smiths in Guildford - I remember the event clearly) I saw Jonathan Livingston Seagull on the bookshelves nearby. I don't know what had changed in my outlook from all those years before but I felt compelled to buy it. It was a frivolous gesture, almost an aside as I was really more interested in the Roxy Music book that I had wanted for quite a while.
Having pored over the Roxy Music book, I decided to give Jonathan Livingston Seagull a shot. It's a short, small book and I think I finished it in an hour or so. As I read it, I couldn't believe it: here was somebody expressing exactly how I felt! It's a cliché but it did feel like a life changing moment.
I guess different people will read things differently, and that's certainly true of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I've lent the book to many people and most (okay, I think all) have read it and returned it saying "nice story" but with a glazed look as if to say "Why are you making such a fuss?" along with a imaginary pat on the head to humour me. I suspect many will read what I'm writing here with the same bemusement thinking "WTF?"
I said that different people read things differently, so what did Jonathan Livingston Seagull say to me? The book seemed to put into words what I hadn't quite formulated about my situation at that time. I was on a merry-go-round. Everything was based on the next goal. I'd done O-levels. Then A-levels. And now there were more exams at university. And it seemed life after that would be the same too. Going after one promotion or goal after the next. All to get a better job and a better salary. Always trying to get somewhere else. There was no talk about job satisfaction, only about job security. Perhaps it was understandable. My family and their contemporaries had grown up through the austere post World War II years and security was the priority. That was part of the culture of the time. However Jonathan Livingston Seagull suggested to me that perhaps there was more to life than security, comfort and status. It also made me feel that I wasn't quite as stupid, strange, or alone as I had been feeling at that time.
