"He was everywhere, he enjoyed himself hugely, he laughed out loud at passing sea gulls"39. This line is describing Phineas, or Finny, and how he lives life to it's fullest and seizes the day. Finny is an example of living the "carpe diem" seize the day philosophy from the movie "Dead Poets Society." There are a few examples in the first part of this novel of how Finny takes advantage of life. The first example is how he enjoys himself so much at the beach. Gene describes how Finny has such a great time at the beach as seen in...
record, they would be too lazy to go find a stop watch anyway.

He runs around and has fun all day at the beach when everyone else is just lying around being lazy, he doesn't want to waste his time playing boring games like badminton, so he makes up his own game which turns out to be a hit with the other students in his school, he beats a swimming time record just to see if he can, but he doesn't want any recognition. The preceding examples demonstrate that Phineas lives the "carpe diem", or seize the day philosophy.