I Drink, Therefore I Am....Drunk

I was chatting to the taxi driver who left me home today about the kind of work I enjoy doing. We both agreed there was no way we'd want to be cooped up in an office with the same ten work colleagues for years doing the same thing day in and day out. I was saying how there tends to be a bad atmosphere created in such places with office gossip and politics. People like to moan and complain and this has a negative impact on everyone who works there. I told the taxi driver "Misery loves company". He had never heard this saying before despite being at least 20 years older than me. He liked it. He kept repeating it. Then I told him he'd be more aware of that now. How people who are always complaining and bad mouthing tend to stick together and the people who are happy and positive tend to stick together. This melted his head a wee bit. He liked the saying but he didn't want to thnk too much about it. I laughed as I got out his car and joked about what else he might talk about with his customers today. He laughed and said he'd be better sticking to football.

People don't like to think too much. And, whatever they can do to stop themselves thinking, they will. TV, junk food, addictions are all tools to drown out that voice in our head. As always, I believe in balance. Being someone who thinks too much I am aware how it can be a bad thing. But to not think at all, well, that just makes you dumb, in every sense of the word. I did find this on the internet yesterday and it did make me smile and so I'd like to share it because it's silly and I'd rather be silly at the minute than thinking all the time:

Thinking

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. That was when things began to sour at home. 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 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 lunch time 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?"

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."

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. 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, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio 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 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 "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. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me. Today, I registered to vote Republican.

I'll never forget my Thai friends who told me "Don't think too much". I thought they were telling me not to drink too much but they preferred me to drink a lot and not think so much. Also, some people get a bit carried away with the "I think, therefore I am" philosophy. If you think you're brilliant that does not necessarily mean you are brilliant. A new motto should read "I think, and then I act accordingly, therefore I am"