Rich Conversations: 021. Mount Analogue and Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Show notes from episode 021 of Rich Conversations: Mount Analogue and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I’m trying something a little different in addition to what we normally do.

I’ve been reading quite a bit over the last two years since the tractor fire accident. I’ve been reflecting on life and asking: why? I thought I’d find answers in books, so I just started reading.

I ran into a problem. I wasn’t getting through them fast enough. I set the goal of reading one per week to resolve it; we concluded 2019 having read a book for 35 straight weeks. I broke the streak, but we’ll shoot to make this one longer! We’re on two straight.

I view life as a puzzle. I have to find puzzle pieces to put it together and make sense. I intentionally explore for pieces in life, wherever I go or whatever I’m doing. I’ve found, however, that I consistently find pieces in books.

I’d like to share more of what I’m learning. I’m growing from it, so maybe you’ll also find some value in it too.

I want to talk about Mount Analogue and Jonathan Livingston Seagull today. The reason I’m choosing two is because I read them back to back and they’re similar in both size and themes.

Mount Analogue was lent to me by Dr. Dave. I gave him a copy and told him about Awareness. He said, “Hold on. I think I have a book you’ll like.” He sprinted to his apartment and returned with a book.

It’s by a French spiritual surrealist poet/writer named Rene Daumal and published in 1952. It’s about a group of people who attempt to find and climb a mountain that’s been undiscovered. This mountain unites Heaven and Earth. There’s one particular passage in the beginning that hooked me.

“It seems that around the age of adolescence, the inner life of the young human being is suddenly weakened, its natural courage neutered. His thought no longer dares to confront reality or mystery face to face, directly; but endeavors to regard them through the opinions of ‘grown-ups,’ through the books and courses of professors. Yet the small inner voice is not entirely extinguished, and sometimes it cries out when it can, whenever a jolt of existence loosens the gag. It cries out its question, but we immediately stifle it. Well, we already understand each other a little. I can tell you, then, that I am afraid of death. Not of what we imagine about death, for this fear is itself imaginary. Not of my death whose date will be recorded in the civic registers of the state. But of that death I suffer every moment, of the death of that voice which, out of the depths of my childhood keeps asking, as yours does: ‘What am I?’”

What’s really interesting is that Daumal died of Tuberculosis at age 36 before he finished it. So the book is unfinished. It just ends. So there’s all this speculation around it. People analyze his next chapter notes and outlines.

The book is weird and kind of hard to follow at times. I’m not sure if it’s because he didn’t finish it or because it’s just his style. Something to consider.

I came across Jonathan Livingston Seagull after Kobe Bryant’s death. It was apparently his favorite book—or one of his favorite books.

I was in Paris when he died. It was like 10:30 at night. I had just gotten back to my hostel and my room card key wasn’t working. I waited in line at the front desk. There was a younger fella in front of me. A friend walked up to him and asked, “Did you hear the news?”

“What news?” he responded.

“Kobe Bryant died.”

My heart dropped. That seemed so ridiculous to me. It not uncommon for someone to be trending online as having passed. It was only two months ago when I was at a bar and the bartender announced that Mike Tyson passed. I was skeptical. I didn’t believe it.

“How’d he die?” I asked the young man.

“Helicopter crash,” he answered.

Sure enough, it was confirmed as soon as I went online. It’s still pretty surreal that Kobe is gone—no longer was with us. He was so full of life. He embodied the message in a number of books I’ve read. I recalled the video I watched about a year ago of Giannis talking about his experience working out with Kobe. He really looked up to Kobe. They’re cut from the same cloth—want to be the best and will work hard to reach it. Giannis said Kobe told him that the most important thing was to “always think like a kid.”

I can understand why Kobe liked Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It’s about the pursuit of the freedom of his true self. A seagull who just wants to fly—he just wants to keep learning how to fly faster and higher. The flock, on the other hand, just wants to eat breadcrumbs and exist. They kick him out of the flock as an outcast. After he continues becoming a greater and greater flyer, he teaches other outcast seagulls how to fly.

This book is full of good quotes. Here are a few:

“We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!”

“It always works, when you know what you’re doing.”

“We’re free to go where we wish and to be what we are.”

“The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.”

“Don’t believe what you’re eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”

“Heaven is not a place, and it’s not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”

Kobe.