Olivia: Alright, Jackson, quick. Michael J. Fox. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Jackson: The DeLorean, the hoverboard, and an unbreakable, almost superhuman, sense of optimism. The guy is basically a human sunbeam. Olivia: Exactly. Which is why it's so jarring when he opens his latest memoir by declaring he's officially 'out of the lemonade business.' Jackson: Whoa, hold on. Michael J. Fox said that? The king of finding the silver lining? What could possibly push him to that point? Olivia: A perfect storm of brutal reality. And that raw, unfiltered honesty is at the heart of his fourth memoir, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality. Jackson: His fourth? Wow. I knew about Lucky Man, but this one sounds different. Olivia: Completely. His earlier books were about maintaining optimism with Parkinson's. This one, which became a New York Times Bestseller, was written after a second, completely unrelated health crisis—a benign tumor on his spinal cord that was growing and threatened to paralyze him. This book is about what happens when that lifelong optimism finally shatters. Jackson: That’s a whole other level of challenge. It’s one thing to deal with a chronic condition you’ve known for decades, but another to have a completely new, terrifying threat emerge. Olivia: And that’s our entry point. The book opens not with a reflection on Parkinson's, but with a single, catastrophic event that changes everything.

Jackson: Okay, so what was this event? What was the final straw that made him say he was 'out of the lemonade business'? Olivia: It was a fall. But the context is what makes it so devastating. After the high-risk surgery to remove the spinal tumor, he spent months in grueling rehab, literally learning to walk again. His family, his doctors, his therapists—everyone gave him one, single, paramount instruction. Jackson: Let me guess: "Don't fall." Olivia: Precisely. "You have one job: Don’t fall." He’d just gotten back to his Manhattan apartment, alone for the first time in months. He was feeling a flicker of his old independence. He was scheduled for a cameo in a Spike Lee-produced movie the next day. Life was, for a moment, looking up. Jackson: Oh, I can feel where this is going. It’s that moment of hope right before the disaster. Olivia: Exactly. It's 6:30 in the morning. He's alone in his kitchen, a little wobbly, and then it happens. A sudden, unexpected fall. He hits the floor hard and immediately realizes he can't feel his left arm. It's shattered. Jackson: Oh, man. That’s just brutal. It’s not just the physical pain, is it? It’s the psychological blow. It’s the failure at the one thing everyone told him to do. Olivia: That's the core of it. He writes about the immense shame and embarrassment that washed over him as he lay on the floor. He had to crawl to a wall-mounted phone to call for help. In that moment, his famous optimism wasn't just challenged; it was, in his words, obliterated. Jackson: And that’s when he says the line about the lemonade business. Olivia: That’s the line. "Make lemons into lemonade? Screw it—I’m out of the lemonade business." It’s such a powerful, human moment. For thirty years, he’d built a public identity around resilience and positivity. He’d found a way to live with Parkinson's, which he described as a manageable 'jab.' But this—the tumor, the surgery, the fall—this was a 'check hook' that knocked him down completely. Jackson: It’s so relatable, though. I think anyone who's faced a major setback, health or otherwise, knows that feeling. There are days when you just don't have the energy to be positive. You just want to be allowed to feel that it sucks. Olivia: And he gives himself, and the reader, permission for that. He acknowledges that sometimes things are just bad. He writes, "Things don’t always turn out. Sometimes things turn shitty." This isn't the optimistic hero we think we know. This is a man confronting the absolute limits of his own philosophy. Jackson: It’s a much more honest and, frankly, more useful form of inspiration. It’s not about pretending pain doesn’t exist. It’s about what you do after you’ve admitted you’re on the floor and can’t get up. So, his optimism is broken, his body is broken... how does he even begin to come back from that? Especially as an actor, where his body was his entire instrument? Olivia: That’s the fascinating next chapter of his life. He has to completely redefine what strength means. It’s no longer about physical control or hiding his illness. It’s about something entirely new.

Jackson: Right, because when you think of Michael J. Fox in his prime, you think of pure kinetic energy. Marty McFly on the hoverboard, Alex P. Keaton bouncing around the living room. He was a human fidget spinner. How do you act when you can't control your own movements? Olivia: Well, for years, he didn't. After leaving Spin City, he effectively retired from leading roles because the effort of hiding his symptoms was too exhausting. But after a while, he started getting offers for guest roles, and this is where the shift happens. He starts to wonder: what if I stop trying to hide it? What if I incorporate it? Jackson: He decides to co-opt the disease. Olivia: He co-opts the disease. His first big test was a guest spot on Scrubs. He played a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Kevin Casey, who was revered by everyone but was secretly battling severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Jackson: Ah, so he’s playing a character with a different affliction, but one that manifests physically and mentally. Olivia: Exactly. There's a key scene where he's obsessively scrubbing his hands, and another doctor confronts him. Fox's character just breaks down, confessing how trapped he is by his own mind. In that moment, Fox the actor realized he could pour all the energy he used to spend hiding his Parkinson's tremors into portraying the character's internal struggle. The audience sees OCD, but he's channeling his own experience with a brain that won't cooperate. Jackson: That's genius. It's like a martial art, using the opponent's energy. He’s not fighting the symptoms; he's redirecting them into the performance. Olivia: It was a revelation for him. He writes, "I can play anyone, as long as they have Parkinson’s. And as I was discovering, everyone has Parkinson’s." He means everyone has their own invisible struggle, their own burden. This opened the floodgates for some of his most acclaimed work. Jackson: Like on The Good Wife! His character, Louis Canning, was unforgettable. He was this manipulative lawyer who would use his disability to win sympathy from juries. Olivia: And that was the ultimate expression of this new philosophy. The writers created the character with a neurological disorder called tardive dyskinesia, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson's. Canning would intentionally play up his symptoms in the courtroom to disarm his opponents. Fox was literally using his real-life physical challenges as a fictional character's weapon. Jackson: It’s so meta and so brilliant. He turned what society sees as a weakness, a deficit, into his character's greatest asset. Olivia: He says it perfectly. He realized he had to stop focusing on the notes he could no longer hit. Instead, he had to focus on his new instrument. He writes, "It’s not an electric, it’s acoustic. It’s not a Les Paul, it’s a Hummingbird." He found a new way to make music. He even did a famous episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where he played a version of himself, and Larry David becomes convinced that Michael J. Fox is faking his Parkinson's symptoms just to annoy him. Jackson: That is the most Larry David plotline I have ever heard. And for Fox to agree to that shows such an incredible sense of humor about his own condition. Olivia: It was liberating for him. He got to lean into the absurdity of it all. He wasn't just accepting his vulnerability; he was putting it on display, playing with it, and finding strength in it. But this is all about his professional life. The bigger question remained. Jackson: Okay, he found a way to work, but how does he live? How do you sustain any kind of hope when you're dealing with that level of fear and uncertainty every single day, in your own home? Olivia: That's where he learns the most profound lesson of the book. He discovers that his old brand of optimism was too fragile for the reality he was facing. He needed a new source of fuel.

Jackson: It makes sense. Blind optimism feels like it would just shatter against the kind of pain and frustration he was describing. It’s like bringing a paper shield to a sword fight. So what was the alternative? Olivia: The alternative was gratitude. But not in a cheesy, "live, laugh, love" kind of way. It was a hard-won, practical tool for survival. He credits his late father-in-law, Stephen Pollan, with teaching him this. Pollan had a plaque on his desk that read "Professional Fear Remover." Jackson: I want to meet that guy. What a job title. Olivia: Right? And Pollan’s core lesson for Fox was this: "With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable." Jackson: With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable. Okay, break that down. How does that work in practice? Olivia: Fox illustrates it beautifully with a story from a family trip to Africa, which he took after his surgeries and his fall. He was terrified, but he went anyway. And on that safari, he realized he was dealing with three distinct types of fear. Jackson: Okay, the three fears of Michael J. Fox. I'm listening. Olivia: The first fear was seeing a leopard lounging in a tree with its kill. It was a real, visible, tangible danger. But it was contained. The group was safe in their Land Rovers. You respect the danger, you follow the rules, and you survive. That’s a fear you can manage. Jackson: Right. That's a rational fear. You see the threat, you assess it, you take precautions. Olivia: The second fear came when their vehicle got stuck in deep mud near a watering hole, right as the sun was setting. The winch was broken. The radio was spotty. This was the fear of the unseen. They couldn't see the lions or hyenas, but they knew they were out there, in the dark. It was the fear of what you can't see but you know is close. That was a much more potent, unnerving fear. Jackson: That gives me chills. That’s the anxiety-inducing fear, the 'what if.' It’s not the monster in front of you; it’s the one you imagine is just beyond the treeline. Olivia: Exactly. But then he describes the third, and most terrifying, fear. At night, in his tent, he had to get up to use the bathroom. In the pitch black, in an unfamiliar space, with his wobbly legs and broken arm, the tent itself became a minefield of luggage, furniture, and trip hazards. That, he says, was the most paralyzing fear of all. It wasn't an external threat like a leopard or a lion. It was the internal minefield of his own body, his own vulnerability. Jackson: Wow. So, the leopard is the known danger, the mud is the unknown threat, and the tent is the enemy within. That’s a powerful framework. Olivia: It is. And this is where gratitude comes in. Gratitude is what allows you to deal with that third fear. He couldn't be grateful for the broken arm or the spinal tumor. But he could be grateful for his wife, Tracy, who was sleeping beside him. He could be grateful for the doctors who had saved him from paralysis. He could be grateful for his children. Jackson: Ah, so gratitude isn't about ignoring the bad stuff. It’s about actively choosing to focus on the good that coexists with it. It’s acknowledging the leopard in the tree, but also being grateful for the Land Rover that keeps you safe. It's acknowledging the fear in the tent, but being grateful for the person sleeping next to you. Olivia: You've got it. It’s not about pretending the darkness doesn't exist. It's about finding and holding onto the light that exists within the darkness. That's what makes hope sustainable. It's not a feeling; it's a practice. It's an action.

Jackson: So this whole journey, from the fall in the kitchen to the tent in Africa, it’s really about him dismantling his old, brittle optimism and forging something new. Olivia: Exactly. The book isn't a rejection of optimism. It's a graduation to a more mature, durable version of it. He learns that hope isn't about the absence of fear or pain. In fact, he comes to believe that gratitude is the only thing that makes optimism possible in the face of real suffering. It’s the anchor in the storm. Jackson: It’s a profound shift. He starts the book by saying he's out of the lemonade business, but it sounds like by the end, he's not making lemonade anymore. He's just learned to appreciate the taste of the water, even when it's bitter. Olivia: That’s a perfect way to put it. He accepts the bitterness, the pain, the fear. And in that acceptance, he finds a new kind of peace. He ends the book by reflecting on everything, the good and the bad, and says, "I am grateful for all of it—every bad break, every wrong turn, and the unexpected losses—because they’re real. It puts into sharp relief the joy, the accomplishments, the overwhelming love of my family." Jackson: That’s incredible. It makes you wonder, what are the fragile, untested optimisms in our own lives? The ones that haven't been put through the fire yet. And what would it take to rebuild them with something stronger, like gratitude? Olivia: That's the question he leaves us with. And it’s a powerful one. We'd love to hear your take. What's one small thing you're grateful for today, especially if it's a day you're struggling? Let us know on our socials. It’s a practice worth starting. Jackson: Absolutely. A powerful read from a true icon. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.