Second Day

Nuts. Lots of nuts.

Veggie burgers. Spinach. Endless cups of water. This is what I eat. And to be honest, it's not that bad.

The hardest part isn't the avoidance of meat or dairy or sugar. It's not sex or caffeine.

It's the avoidance of harmful thoughts. Of negativity.

Here's an experiment. Tomorrow, every time you feel angry or hateful or jealous, just take a note of it. Every time you think "that guy's an asshole" or "she's a bitch", just take note.

If you're like me, you're a lot angrier than you give yourself credit for.

It would be the height of foolishness to try to abstain from thinking negatively at all. A thought would creep in, subconsciously even, and then you'd be all done. No, we're just trying to avoid the harmful thoughts. Not dwelling on them.

This is a bit easier to do, but not much. Probably ten times today, I found myself getting angry over little, mundane things. My job. Traffic. The slowness of the elevator.

Taking a deep breath helps, but only a little. Saying "it's no big deal" helps, but not much. Smiling almost does the trick, but not quite.

When I was younger, I used to laugh at how people would flip out over the pettiest things. Getting the wrong burger, a long line, being cut off in traffic. And I could never understand what their problem was.

But I do now. Because it isn't just the burger or the line or the asshole with no turn signal. It's the accumulation of little annoyances, on top of a deep and heavy dissatisfaction with their lives. A crushing sense of fear or doubt or inadequacy. And it manifests in those little events that, in and of themseles, are minor.

I understand this, because I feel the same way. Working in Hollywood can be grueling in a weird way.

NOT working in Hollywood is grueling. Meetings and auditions and packets. The endless driving and promises and handshakes. And at the end of the day, not being a single step further along. I've worked for two years on my show without making a single penny. I'm on the third draft of a screenplay I feel I'll never finish. And I can't even get in the audition room for the shows I want to be on.

It's the kind of thing that makes you want to drink. Or smoke pot. Or eat an animal-style Double-Double with extra crispy fries. Anything to stick your head in the sand and avoid that awful truth: life is moving on, while you're just standing still.

The truth of this little experiment isn't just "Hey, let's not have fun for a month." It's removing all of the crutches that we use when something is wrong. And confronting them head on.

The real challenge of this whole thing isn't to see if we can survive without Jack Daniels. It's to see if we can survive with only ourselves.