  JUST THINK My friend, Paul, sent me this. I don't know who wrote it, but it's very well written and very clever... even if you beg to differ with the last sentence. It started out innocently enough. I began to think 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, 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 lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here? " Things weren't going so great at home either.
One evening I had turnedoff the TV 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.
" This 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 snapped "and I want a divorce! " "But Honey, surely it's not that serious. " "It is serious," She added, 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 had enough. "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, with NPR on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran 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 night. As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life? " it asked. Most of you no doubt 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 noneducational 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. Life just seemed ... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
Soon, I will be able to vote Republican. 
