Greg McKeown

And he just explained, look, I grew up on a farm.

It was a rural area.

Seagulls, we had huge seagull problems.

We killed thousands of seagulls all the time.

They're just pests.

They're rodents to us.

And we're a threat to us too.

So I...

he didn't say these words, but the spirit of it was, this was as much of a moral moment as killing a fly, maybe stepping on a watch.

That isn't what it means to him.

And it's in that observation that I suddenly discovered something about myself.

And that's this point, this broader point I'm trying to make that we can only understand ourselves as we're talking and listening and understanding to other people.

And it was in that moment I realized, well, I grew up having Jonathan Livingston Segal, the book, read to me.

I read it myself.

This was multiple times.

This was meaningful to me personally.

It was meaningful in our family.

And I realized, oh, what he did, in my mind, he killed Jonathan.

And I thought, right, okay, so I can still hold on to the idea.

This is not a wise, kind thing to have done.