This isn't a page - silly!

 

Hi, everybody. My name is Bill W., and I'm a heavy thinker. It started out innocently enough, I suppose. I began to think socially at parties now and then, just 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. After a while, I couldn't control myself and I began thinking all the time. I even began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and work don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. 

Some of my co-workers began to notice the look of deep concentration on my face, and how they'd always see me with my nose buried in a philosophy book. I'd disappear during lunch and head down to the public park, where I'd read a few chapters of Aristotle, or sometimes I'd just sit there and stare off into the distance, lost inside my thinking. It was soon pretty clear to everyone around me that my thinking had gotten out of control. Now I was thinking most of the day, every day.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What exactly are we doing here?"

Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening, after thinking nearly all day at work, I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She left and spent that night at her mother's.

Before long, I had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day, after I knew I couldn't hide it any longer, the boss called me into his office.

He said, "Bill W., 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, we'll have to let you go. We just can't run a business here if our employees are thinking. And sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt. Get some professional help." This gave me a lot to think about. 

I came home early that day after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking." she said, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, it's not that serious."

"It IS serious," she said, with her lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as some of those college professors, and college professors don't make any money! If you don't stop thinking, we won't be able to make ends meet!"

"That's faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and then she began to cry. She'd had enough, and so had I.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door. 

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, listening to a National Public Radio station on the way. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors ... but they didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that God was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground clawing at those glass doors, whimpering for some Plato or Socrates, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy 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 heavy thinker.

I never miss a T-A meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's Revenge." Then we share experiences about how we've avoided thinking since last meeting.

I got my old job back, and things are a lot better at home. My wife and I don't ever talk about those horrible days when I was thinking all the time. Life just seems ... easier, somehow, now that I've stopped thinking.....