It started out innocently enough. I began to...
...think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
I began to think alone, "To relax" I told myself. But I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and working don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunch so that I could read Kant, Kierkegaard, and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly that we are doing here?"
Things weren't going so well at home either. One evening I had turned the TV off and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."
Well. That gave me a lot to...think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I
confessed, "I've been thinking..."
"I know you've been thinking," she shouted, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I'd come to despise such emotional displays. "I'm going to the library," I announced and went out to my Volvo.
I cruised off to the library with the radio tuned to the local PBS station. In the mood for some Hegel, I pulled into the parking lot and jogged up to the big glass doors... They didn't open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that afternoon. I clutched at the cold, unyielding glass. I whimpered for the World Spirit, and, collapsing to the ground, I caught my pitiful reflection on those vitreous portals... Then, a poster gripped my attention.
"Friend, is heady thinking ruining your life?" it asked.
You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting.
At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.
I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Not thinking is still a daily challenge, but every day without thinking makes control easier the next day.
Life seems sweeter somehow, ever since I stopped thinking.
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Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much--such
men are dangerous!
from "Julius Caesar" by Bill Shakespeare
