Viewpoints

Knowing of something
and going through it
are two different things.

Death – the eventuality –
can be accepted at a
distance, until it becomes
imminent, and turns to
an aching preoccupation.

At its end it becomes
an obsession and then
is realized but there
there is no more philosophy.


9 July 1978
 
 

Thinking is not something that most people include on their CVs. At least most people don’t. I’m not even sure than any of the “great thinkers” of our time—the Nietzsches, Kants and Hegels—actually called themselves “thinkers”—bit pretentious really—but I’ve definitely seen people described on TV as, say, “writer, poet and thinker”. I wonder if Stephen Hawking thinks of himself as a “thinker”. Or Isaac Asimov and Alan Turing when they were alive. Philosophers, obviously, have to be thinkers but so are politicians, writers and artists. A division should probably be drawn too between “the thinking man”, “serious thinkers” and “deep thinkers”.

Worst insult of my life? “You’re not deep, you’re shallow.” My first wife on the day she left me which is about four years on from this poem. Talk about kicking a guy where it hurts.

My name is Jim. And I’m a thinker. I got into thinking quite early on. I watched grownups thinking and it looked cool, a bit risky so I decided I’d give it a go. Pretty soon I was thinking all the time: at school, watching TV, in the bath, at night in bed. I never told anyone. It was my guilty secret. At first everyday thoughts were enough. I’d think, Isn’t that a cute cat? or My, the sky’s blue today but pretty soon I was peering into the darkness and something in it was peering back at me. That’s when I knew I had a problem but by then I was… there’s no other word for it: addicted.

It’s been a long road. I still think from time to time—there’s no cure (don’t let anyone kid you)—but it’s not as bad as what it used to be. I used to think about deep shit like death and taxes. Not sure I’ve thought about either for years but every now and then I see a news item about some massacre overseas or a change to the basic rate of Income Tax and the old urges raise their ugly heads.