Thinkers Anonymous

A special thanks to my dear friend Annie Duggan, Vashon Island, WA for sending me this TRUTH.

It started out innocently enough. I began to think, and the more I thunked, I found myself thinking even more. Think, think, think; over coffee, lying awake in the middle of the night, at gatherings of friends. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a 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.

That was when things began to sour at home.  One evening I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life.  

She spent that  night at her mother's.

I began to think on the job.  I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't help myself. I began to avoid fellow workers at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Confucius, and Kafka.  I would return to the office light headed, self absorbed and asking, "What is it exactly that we are doing here at work?"

One day the boss called me in.  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."

That gave me a lot to think about.  I came home early after my conversation with  the boss.  I confessed to my wife, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, her lower lip quivering. "You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, you won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently. She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, for quiet and to be surrounded by the great thinkers and their words. I drove into the  parking lot with NPR on the radio and headed for the big glass doors. They would not open. They were locked. The Library was closed.

My escape to deeper thinking was blocked by those doors and I whimpered, feeling lost and unfilled, and then, by chance, my eye caught sight of a poster that said, “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" Do you recognize that line form that poster? 

It is the standard Thinkers  Anonymous poster. That moment is why I am who and what I am today: A Recovering Thinker. To this day, I  believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

I never miss a Thinkers Anonymous (TA) meeting.  At each meeting we watch a NON-educational video;  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.  I think the road  to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took what I believe the final decisive step.

I joined the Republican Party.