thinking.html

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   4     <title>A Thinking Problem</title>
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   9     <h1>A Thinking Problem</h1>
  10
  11 <P>I think, I have a problem....
  12
  13
  14 <P>Beware:
  15
  16 <P>Thinker's Anonymous
  17
  18 <P>It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now
  19 and then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to
  20 another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.
  21
  22 <P>I began to think alone - "to relax," I told myself - but I knew it
  23 wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and
  24 finally I was thinking all the time.
  25
  26 <P>I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment
  27 don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself.
  28
  29 <P>I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and
  30 Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking,
  31 "What is it exactly we are doing here?"
  32
  33 <P>Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening I had
  34 turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She
  35 spent that night at her mother's.
  36
  37 <P>I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called
  38 me in. He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this,
  39 but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop
  40 thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me
  41 a lot to think about.
  42
  43 <P>I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I
  44 confessed, "I've been thinking..."
  45
  46 <P>"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"
  47
  48 <P>"But Honey, surely it isn't that serious." "It is serious," she
  49 said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors,
  50 and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on
  51 thinking we won't have any money!"
  52
  53 <P>"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she began to
  54 cry.
  55
  56 <P>I'd had enough. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped
  57 out the door.
  58
  59 <P>I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with a PBS
  60 station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to
  61 the big glass doors... they didn't open. The library was closed.
  62
  63 <P>To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me
  64 that night.
  65
  66 <P>As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering
  67 for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking
  68 ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It
  69 comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.
  70
  71 <P>Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never
  72 miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video;
  73 last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we
  74 avoided thinking since the last meeting.
  75
  76 <P>I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just
  77 seemed... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
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