{"id":271,"date":"2004-12-10T08:33:29","date_gmt":"2004-12-10T08:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idiolect.truth.posiweb.net\/notes\/?p=271"},"modified":"2004-12-10T08:33:29","modified_gmt":"2004-12-10T08:33:29","slug":"fwd-reality-of-a-heavy-thinker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/2004\/12\/10\/fwd-reality-of-a-heavy-thinker\/","title":{"rendered":"Fwd: Reality of a heavy thinker"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then — to loosen up.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.<\/p>\n

I began to think alone — “to relax,” I told myself — but I knew it wasn’t true.<\/p>\n

Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.<\/p>\n

That was when things began to sour at home.<\/p>\n

One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life.<\/p>\n

She spent that night at her mother’s.<\/p>\n

I began to think on the job.<\/p>\n

I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.<\/p>\n

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka.<\/p>\n

I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”<\/p>\n

One day the boss called me in.<\/p>\n

He said, “Listen, 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.”<\/p>\n

This gave me a lot to think about.<\/p>\n

I came home early after my conversation with the boss.<\/p>\n

“Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”<\/p>\n

“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”<\/p>\n

“But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.”<\/p>\n

“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!”<\/p>\n

“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently.<\/p>\n

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.<\/p>\n

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche.<\/p>\n

I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors…<\/p>\n

They didn’t open. The library was closed.<\/p>\n

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.<\/p>\n

Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye.<\/p>\n

“Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked.<\/p>\n

You probably recognize that line.<\/p>\n

It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster.<\/p>\n

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.<\/p>\n

I never miss a TA meeting.<\/p>\n

At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.”<\/p>\n

Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.<\/p>\n

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.<\/p>\n

Life just seemed…easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.<\/p>\n

I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.<\/p>\n

Today, I registered to vote as a Republican…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5KQtW-4n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}