You are in a room

You have known this room your whole life. It is well-lit and well-defined, almost so bright that it's uncomfortable for your eyes. You know every detail of its four walls, and though you may have reshaped it now and then—moved the furniture to fit your current tastes and mindset—it is still the same well-lit room with its well-defined angles.

You know the limits of this room intimately. You have explored it in great detail. Nothing is hidden, nothing is unknown. You know where everything is so well that you could walk it with your eyes closed. It is so familiar. You find a certain melancholy peace in this: that nothing in this room can surprise you. All the books are well-lit, so you can clearly see the titles, and you have read them so many times you could recite them line for line. It is the same with the music too; it is all that you have heard before, things you like, or elaborations of things you like...

Even the shadows that this room casts are not unknown to you. Though not as brightly lit, they give a warming contrast, and you have changed the room around so much that you realize any shadow is simply a shaded perspective of that which is already known. An elaboration that gives overall presence to the well-lit room. And even the shadows are not unexplored, for although they are darker than on the surfaces where the light shines brightly, they are not altogether uncomfortable or unexplorable. Simply shifting the light will banish or illuminate the shadow enough for you to see its form and depth...

As always, however, as your gaze takes in the room, you notice the door on the far wall. It is not the door you entered through; that door disappeared the moment you entered this room. Perhaps you will see it again, but for now, your gaze rests on the door in front of you across the hall. You know this door well; its expanse is not unknown to you. It has been here since you came here. It is a simple white door with a brass knob. Nothing special about it, and yet your heart pounds in excitement just looking at it.

You get up, as you always do, and cross your well-lit room to the door. Your breathing comes louder, and your heart beats faster. You stand in front of the door, and your hand, of its own volition, comes to rest on the cold brass knob. Without thinking, you turn it and open wide the door to... Nothing...???

The other side of the door is black, and the interior of the room is... black? No, black indicates color. This room is void. No light from your well-lit room casts into this next one. It doesn't even penetrate one inch. You are sweating now, and your heart is like a triphammer in your chest. Your breathing has become louder, and although you are, for some unknown reason, afraid, you are also... excited... curious...

You have done this many times before, and in the beginning, you would just close the door and walk away. But you have grown braver over the years, and your other hand paws at the inside of the room against where the wall should be, seeking a switch to cast light into this void, so you can feel the relief of knowing... Except there isn't a switch. For some reason, you can't even feel a wall on which a switch should be. Growing slightly bolder, you lean forward into this inky, indefinable blackness, this void without seeming shape or form. You almost take a step in and feel a slight wave of vertigo as your foot comes in contact with... nothing. In a panicked moment, you realize there is no floor as well, and you almost fall in. Stepping back and righting yourself, you breathe deeply before grasping the walls of your own well-lit room and leaning out into the void.

Then you begin to hear, or is it just your mind playing tricks on you? You think you hear... things moving out in the void. Of course, you can't be certain as you can't see anything. And is it really things moving out there, or is it just some strange music that you are only interpreting as something different? You take one of your hands off the wall and lean further out, stretching your hand out into the void. You search blindly to discover anything about this darkness beyond darkness, this place without direction or seeming limits... Something brushes your hand, or did your hand brush something? It matters not, for your nerve breaks, and you tear yourself back into your well-lit room, slamming the door. You are drenched in sweat, and fear and excitement pour off of you in waves...

You sit in a chair, and your breathing relaxes. You stop sweating and grow calm once again. Your room gives you comfort because even in your terror, you knew where your chair would be and sat down without even looking. Everything is where it should be, as it should be. And for a moment, you simply bask in your knowing...

However, your eyes, wayward of your will, steal back to the door, and a curious longing wells up within you. You want to know what lies beyond this door, and yet to do that means leaving the comfort of knowing. That next room (if it can be called a room) requires a great sacrifice from you: to sacrifice your comfort. Comfort of knowing, of seeing, of limits... for there is no light in the room beyond this one. Discovery is done through feeling, hearing, tasting, intuition, PASSION.

There will be pain and suffering; there will be despair. And yet, what great expeditions in history have not been without these things? Once these things become known to you, they will have no power over you, and your joy, compassion, and love will soar higher, more defined by the contrast of the others (pain, suffering, despair). And of course, there are the things out there, in the void... those things that brushed against your hand... what if one of those things got a hold of you?

No path is without its dangers, or, you think, its illusions. What if you are simply creating illusions out of fear so as not to have to explore that which you can't, don't (refuse to) understand? What if it is simply nothing, but you making mountains out of molehills... What if it's not, though?

So you sit, and you reshape your room to comfort yourself. You study the shadows to perhaps give you a sense of satisfaction, to fill a void, an emptiness in yourself you cannot explain... there is certain darkness in the shadows, but it is not unknown or unexplored; it is not that limitless, formless darkness of the void beyond the door. You grow angry in time at yourself, at your self-induced ignorance and fear of what lies behind that door. So you go back to your chair and study the door again. Your curiosity and excitement will build again, and you will look beyond the door again. You know this is only a matter of time. Perhaps next time, will you step through though? Perhaps...

We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.

"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other."

You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding.

• Quotes from Jonathan Livingston Seagull