Do we spend too much time thinking?
Should we just live in the present moment
and not think about anything else?
While you are thinking about that...
here is another thing to think about...or not.

THINKERS ANONYMOUS (TA)

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 employment didn't mix,
but I couldn't stop myself.

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

Things weren't going so great at home either.
One evening I had turned off 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 said, "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 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 a PBS station 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. You probably recognize that line.
It come 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 "Dumb and Dumber".
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.
 

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