“This is a work of genius, a metaphor-studded treasure chest filled with wisdom for anyone willing to go look,” says author and entrepreneur Seth Godin of David Leddick’s little gem  I’m Not for Everyone. Neither Are You.  A few chapter-ette titles will give you the idea. “There is no lasting comfort in a safe landing. Better to stay in flight…and embrace impermanence.”  “In confrontation, never answer the way people expect you to.” “He was a man and I like that in a person.”  (Leddick is gay, remember.) “He doesn’t want to give up everybody for somebody.” This chapter-ette begins by saying, “This applies more to men than to women. And not just gay men.”  “A child says nothing matters, but it takes an adult to say it doesn’t matter that nothing matters.” And consider this quote from one chapter-ette: “The language you speak has much to do with your personality. You should really have more than one to understand who you are and who you can be.”

So what are today’s thoughts from David Leddick? 

LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE

“I think it’s very important to pursue the life you want to live. Not the life your parents want you to have or the life that your friends are pursuing or the life you’ve been headed into by your education. Think about what you would really like to have as a life. Where you want to live it. Whom you want to live it with. The experiences that you really want to have. Because finally when you look back on your life it’s not the stuff, it’s what you did or tried to do that lets you feel you have no regrets.

“I come from a large family, and several nieces and nephews couldn’t tell me what they really wanted to do. Finally they’d confess things like “Rock Star” or “Movie Actor,” and I told them someone has to do it, you might just as well try. They started as models and went on to very interesting lives that resulted from crossing paths with people they would never have met otherwise and working in countries they probably wouldn’t have traveled to until late in their lives. As with all pursuits, some you succeed in, some you fail in. But failing isn’t fatal. You tried. You experienced it. It isn’t really any different than succeeding, in the effect it has upon you. You were there, and you can be proud of yourself for trying. And it will certainly lead you to intersections with people and places you would never have known about otherwise.

“Don’t envy the very wealthy or the very famous. Their lives place restrictions upon them, so they can’t have the experiences that allow us to grow and change and look back on a life really wanted. So think now about it. What do you really want to do? In my lifetime I have seen the world change so much for both men and women. So many things that that are accepted. Lifestyles. Work choices. People choices. Go for it!”

David Leddick  has published six novels but perhaps is most known for his books about photography of the male nude, including the historical The Male Nude and Intimate Companions: A Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle.

Gary Garth McCann

First-prize winner for short works and for suspense/mystery, Maryland Writers’ Association, Gary Garth McCann is the author of the  novella Young and in Love?  and of the novels The Shape of the Earth and The Man Who Asked To Be Killed, praised at the Washington Independent Review of Books. His most recent  published stories are available online in Chelsea Station Magazine, Erotic Review Magazine,  and in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change. His other stories appear in The Q Review, reprinted in Off the Rocks, in Best Gay Love Stories 2005, and in the Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly.  See his blogs at garygarthmccann.com and streamlinermemories.com.

• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• More Posts(57)