No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality

by Michael J. Fox

I’ve long realized that control is out of the question; instead, I’ve settled for an understanding that requires adaptability and resilience.

Strangely, I can relate Parkinson’s to this; it’s another way the disease has been a gift (albeit a gift that keeps on taking). The deliberation with which I approach each day, each second, each movement, each intention—can literally slow me down to a crawl. All of those seconds, all of those minutes, are considered; I have a mini-conversation with myself about my every move. I’m taking my time. Time isn’t taking me.

We’re left realizing that, as they begin to create their own future, we begin to face our own mortality.

I had to find Kevin’s truth. It’s not what a character reveals, it’s what he’s hiding that’s intriguing.

uncovering the internal life of another human being.

Every character has a bear inside that they’re wrestling with, no matter where they are and what they’re doing. As an actor, I suddenly wanted more opportunities to take on that bear. So, yes. I was right. I can play anyone, as long as they have Parkinson’s. And as I was discovering, everyone has Parkinson

all were passionate; all had a flaw that was relatable to my own. Each had a vulnerability, and a corresponding point of damage. Add a dash of humor to that pathos, and I’d done a day’s work.

FOMO is a day-to-day reality. I sit at the bar or poolside, waiting for everyone to show up for lunch or dinner. When they do, I’m like a receptacle—a hamper suddenly filled with used beach towels, none of them mine. I experience the adventures of the family only through their recounting.

I sometimes wonder if I could handle the truth behind that concern. It confirms for me that I’m someone she loves—but I’m also someone that she feels is vulnerable and needs protection.

“Love is giving the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve already been accessorized with a bracelet in Day-Glo orange that designates me a “Fall Risk.” Those two words are meant to be cautionary and instructive, but my first reaction is to feel shamed and stigmatized. What’s next, a bell around my neck?

Parkinson’s has robbed me of the luxury of spontaneity. I can’t initiate any new activity without a careful assessment of my physical circumstance and mental alertness.

Parkinson’s is a thief, and now it was taking away something as simple but precious as the ability to walk my dog in the park.

It’s not that I tried to hurt myself; it’s that I didn’t try hard enough not to hurt myself. It was hubris. Unfettered pride. And you know what pride goeth before

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. As bad as the break is, I wouldn’t call it destruction, though my pride did seem to manifest as a haughty spirit. That’s Bible-speak for showing off.

Even with all my health issues, I don’t believe I’ve ever fully grasped the very real depression and marginalization experienced by many who are ill and suffering. Measured on the misery index, the sum total of my afflictions barely nudges the needle on the lower end of the scale, when compared to the pain and hardship of so many people in this world. Their burdens exist on levels I can’t even imagine: the death of a child; the loss of liberty; the exile from home or country. There is no end to sadness.

Have I oversold optimism as a panacea, commodified hope? Have I been an honest broker with the Parkinson’s community? The understanding I’ve reached with Parkinson’s is sincere, but the expression of it risks being glib. I have made peace with the disease, and I might have presumed that others had, too. In telling other patients, “Chin up! It will be okay!” did I look to them to validate my optimism? Is it because I needed to believe it myself? Things don’t always turn out. Sometimes things turn shitty. I have to tell people the whole deal.

This brings me to an inflection point. Over the coming months, I will feel a shift in my worldview, and struggle to believe in ideas that I’ve espoused for years. Have I reached a line beyond which there is no compromise or consolation? My optimism is suddenly finite.

I had certain expectations, validated by past results, that everything would work out okay. But there had been failures in the past, too. And I realize now that I hadn’t given the failures equal weight.

This is a new kind of thinking for me. Can you be an optimist and a realist at the same time? Or does that add up to stoicism? Not that I put on a brave face, or that I’m courageous, for that matter. I am not a hero. Sure, I’ve been through some ordeals, tough times. But I always managed to accept life on life’s terms, and up to this point, I found those terms acceptable. I was able to take on whatever came my way, forge through it, no matter what. Now my attempt to make any sense of it leaves me feeling indifferent. I’m numb. Weary. Optimism, as a frame of mind, is not saving me.

The core lesson Stephen left with me was this: With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable.

I realized that my gratitude, my optimism, had been hijacked by fear.

I learned that there were things to be afraid of; things that went bump in the night. But in the months leading up to that trip, I had gotten lost in more conceptual fears: fear of my circumstances, fear of what the future could bring, and fear of my emotional reaction to it all. There’s a homily that suggests that “the opposite of fear is faith.” Recalling the plaque on my father-in-law’s desk—Professional Fear Remover—I consider the role gratitude played in his life. I’m beginning to see that faith, or fear’s opposite, can be expressed as gratitude, which has always been the bedrock of my optimism. I’ve spent sufficient time and energy dissecting what went wrong; I’m ready to reconnect with everything that went right.