Thinking or Not thinking.

    It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up. Inevatibly 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 that wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me -- finally, I was thinking all the time!

    That was when things began to turn sour at home. One evening, I tuned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She left and spent the 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 friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir, Confucius, and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking: "What exactly is it we are doing here?"

    One day, the boss called me in and 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 here, 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," I said, "Surely it's not that serious."

    "It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as a college professor 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 trauma. 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 library parking lot with social reportage on the radio and ran up to its big glass doors. They didn't open. The library was closed!

    To this day, I believe a higher power was looking out for me that night. Leaning on 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 came from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster. 

    This 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 personal 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 seems...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. The road to recovery is now nearly complete for me.

    Today I took the final step. I joined the Republican Party.

Smarties vs. Dummies

    Once upon a time, in a country founded on equal rights, the country became divided on the very same issue: equal rights. One large section believed in equal rights, and perhaps coincidentally, knew how to make things that worked. Because of this, they are called (here) smarties.

    The other section did not believe in equal rights, but in free unpaid labor, especially by those easily identifiable, usually by a different tone of skin color. This section believed that if they acted important, or had important positions, and pretended that they were important, they were actually important. This was a distortion and mutilation of destiny. They (here) are called dummies.

    Because dummies are, fundamentally, dumb, they either didn't or couldn't perceive that anyone born human is indeed a human, and separation should not be based on an easily identifiable difference, that, when considering the accident of birth, makes no difference, despite silly theories and opinions that rationalize those differences.

     So, because of this fundamental  difference regarding equal rights, these two sections went to war. Imagine that: two sections in the same country went to war! Therefore, it was called a civil war, when actually, because it was a war, there was nothing civil about it.

    It is no surprise that the smarties beat the dummies. In any analysis, it couldn't be otherwise.

    The difference between smart and dumb has become more obvious the many years following the war.

    So dumb, the losing dummies simply don't acknowledge that the war was lost, and continually work against the idea of equal rights! Also (and sadly) as a result, the conceptions of equity and equality fall by the wayside. 

    And now, the dummies have their president. But I am confident that the smarties will eventually win because the dummies will, sooner or later, make a fatal mistake! (In my opinion, they are a mistake!)

Sympathy/Empathy

Comparing sympathy to empathy is like comparing a candle flame to the light of a 1,000 watt bulb. The first just takes a match. The second requires real power.