May 6, 2004 Issue

Editor’s Note to the humor impaired: This is just a joke!

It all 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 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 turned off the TV and asked my husband about the
meaning of life. He spent that night at his mother's.

I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day
the boss called me in. He said, "Honey, 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. "Sweetie," I confessed, "I've been thinking..." "I know you've
been thinking," he interrupted, "and I want a divorce!"

"But surely it's not that serious." "It's
serious," he said. "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 he began to fume.

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.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the
Standard Thinkers 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.

Life just seemed ....easier…somehow as soon as I stopped thinking.

Soon, I will be able to vote Republican.

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