From Kanthan Pillay, writing in 1987

Kanthan Pillay is today a well-known journalist in his native South Africa; see http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/kanthanpillay/2007/10/06/the-beatings-wil.... When younger, he did his part to end the apartheid regime as a dissident journalist. He arrived at Princeton University shortly before I strolled on-campus, he on a fellowship and helping to pay his way by working as a student computer consultant, I as a full-time employee.

I'll never forget running around campus with Kanthan on the morning of the 1987 Morris virus, the first modern computer virus, helping users clean their systems. He was dressed in black, looked Middle Eastern, and had mirrored shades. I was wearing a beret and we either didn't quite look the part of clean-cut American rescuers, or looked like the Men in Black who looked like the Dark Side in the fight against the Dark Side.

Here's what Kanthan wrote for his Princeton writing class, an observation from the developing world of a typical American programmer of the 1980s on his journey to being less than typical, a journey that was an alternative to blowing my brains out.

I have edited Kanthan's piece only a little, to protect the innocent, and to clarify the relationship between cigarettes and malnourishment.

Kanthan, take it away ...

The Microcomputer Demo Room at Princeton University's Computing Center holds the latest advances in personal computing -- donated by the likes of IBM, Apple Computer, AT&T, Zenith, and Hewlett-Packard. Most of the regular inhabitants of the building aren't particularly impressed. They've seen it too many times. Not so with the bulletin board where the software librarian occasionally posts titbits gleaned from the newspapers. The headline on today's offering looked intruiging.

DULL WIFE GOOD FOR A HUBBY'S HEART!

Ed Nilges stopped. He scratched his head, being quite careful about not disturbing the lock of hair he had carefully arranged over his receding hairline earlier that morning. He read on...

"A heart specialist speaking at a California university said men who wanted to live longer should get dull wives because men who marry women with educational qualifications equal to or greater than their own tend to want to use that education and thereby force their husbands into competing with them, which causes the husband stress."

Ed chuckled. "You know, that's quite true. My ex-wife..."

Across the room, someone stifled a groan. Ed talks a lot about his ex-wife. She's the mother of his ten year-old son and lives in Chicago. She moved there after the divorce in 1981 which coincidentally was also the start of Ronald Reagan's term as president. The thought that the two events might be related did not dawn upon Ed until several years later. In fact, not until this moment.

"...should have known then that maybe I should have voted for someone else." He paused, forehead crinkling into a frown. "I should have thought of that in 1984 as well." He shrugged, grinned. "Did I tell you about my new girlfriend?"

Ed shrugs and grins often -- like when you ask him whether he really was an acid junkie in the 1960s. He remembers the 1960s fondly -- social consciousness, long hair, protest marches... He was only 18 in 1968 -- a good-natured revolutionary who paid his dues by stuffing envelopes and drawing placards instead of "making speeches and being a leader". A "sort of Trotskyite socialist who suffered from the deficiency of not having read Das Kapital," was how he saw himself. He did eventually get to read Das Kapital -- at Roosevelt University where he majored in philosophy and graduated without much fanfare. With a degree in philosophy it seemed only natural that he started work as a computer programmer. In 1973, he fell in love, got married, became a father.

At the time of his divorce, he was a Fortune 500 corporation computer systems programmer working a 13 hour day. Under pressure from his divorce, booze, and the psychological trauma of an illogical work ethic, he burned out.

Today, Ed works as an Information Services programmer for Princeton University's Computing and Information Technology. He drives a Ford Escort with Washington state plates which expired a while ago; earns a lot less than he did before; spends most of his income on alimony, rent, and credit card repayments (although not necessarily in that order).

[Hey Kanthan, did you see the bumper sticker? Jesus is My Car Insurance? Har har.]

His imminent soliloquy on his new girlfriend was cut short by his boss, Maria von Tedesca, a former drama instructor who needed to pay her rent as well. "Nilges, what on earth are you doing down here? We've been holding up the blasted meeting for you," she said, sticking her head briefly around the door. She didn't stay for an answer. She knew Ed often came in through the basement when late for work to avoid being chastised by the no-nonsense receptionist, Mrs. Cerebrus. Ms von Tedesca knew also that Ed carefully arranged the lock of hair over his hairline while leaving his car and would go to the window to watch the ceremony every day with fond amusement -- none of which was known to Ed.

It was a while before I cornered Ed again, this time in the coffee room, just after lunch. He was about to fill his fifth cup for the day. "I've realized something quite important," he said. "I was wrong to date Joan only for her mind. I mean, I have my needs too, like any other man. We just didn't hit it off in the sack."

It took a quick mental shuffle to figure out that Ed was resuming his conversation of that morning, specifically about his new "girlfriend", the un-Joan. I remembered Joan. He had brought her over to our place for coffee one evening -- she had seemed pleasant enough. I assumed she was now history. "What are you trying to say, Ed?" I asked. "Is your new girlfriend a bimbo?"

"No, no," he answered, very seriously. "What I'm trying to say is that I dated Joan for the wrong reasons. Joan is a very nice, attractive, intelligent woman, but I think I was making a political statement dating her even though there wasn't any physical rapport."

"Hmm, doesn't your new girlfriend have a mind, then?"

He paused for a moment to think about this; his hand, holding a quarter, poised in mid-air above the coffee vending machine. "Yes, of course. Of course she's got a mind. The point is that I didn't go out this time looking for an intelligent woman as I had done when I met Joan. I was looking for someone who was basically compatible in the sack."

I sipped my coffee. "Lemme get this straight. This new girlfriend is as intelligent as Joan?"

"Yes."

"And Joan is an attractive woman too?"

"Yes."

"So the reason you find your new girlfriend attractive is that she says 'yes' more often than Joan does?"

There was a clang. The quarter missed the slot, bouncing off into the washbasin. "Yes. NO! I mean, well that's what I mean, but not quite that way. Do you have a cigarette?"

"Ed, you gave up smoking, remember? You don't really want a cigarette..."

Moments later, we were out on the balcony, puffing into the breeze. "Do you know," Ed said, "that cigarettes were one of the single biggest reasons for this country's economic growth? It was just another way of keeping the working class in check."

I sat down. This was going to be a long smoke break. "How so?" I asked.

"These things," he gestured with the lit end of the cigarette, "stifle your appetite. You forget that you're hungry, so you keep working. We've had a malnourished, or mis-nourished by McDonald's, population out there for generations. Even when we went home, we would smoke and not realize that we were hungry, or that we fed upon junk. If we had realized it, we would also have known that we didn't have enough money to buy as much of the right sort of food." He paused, digesting this thought.

"The problem is that the working class in this country has never had any concept of class consciousness. We've become sold on this marketing concept of being individual units of labour traded according to value like on the stock market. There never has been any attempt to develop a working class ethic." He puffed deeply, warming to the subject. "The work ethic should stem from the fact that knowledge is acquired as part of the work process. As we work more, we learn more, and our capacity to perform more interesting work increases, allowing us to work more."

Wasn't that the same as wanting to get better skills to earn more money?

"No, that's the point. More money will come as a result of the work ethic. It should not be the reason for it. The problem started with Reagan firing the air traffic controllers. Suddenly, we were surrounded by this new attitude that we were expected to work more to push up production. For those of us who were already overworking voluntarily, this was impossible. But apart from being impossible there was this ridiculous attitude that not only should we BE more productive, but we should also LOOK more productive. I refuse to pretend to be busy when... A pitcher of warm spit -- that's what it was."

I gagged. Ed grinned. "That's a perfectly disgusting expression, Ed," I said between clenched teeth. "I take it you meant that it's a bit silly to act busy when you are busy?"

He nodded. "The trouble with us in this country is that there are a lot of sheep -- wearing blue suits and spouting neo-conservative rhetoric. These same sheep ten years ago [this was 1989] wore their hair long and spouted neo-socialist rhetoric. The ozone layer is in a mess, the environment is in a shambles, George Bush wants a new Falklands War (in Panama). I don't want any of this. But there's nowhere to go to..."

He gazed into the distance. Two women were jogging along the playing field. He sighed appreciatively. "You know, I told my ex-wife that I could emigrate to Switzerland. We could remarry there and get divorced again, but then the welfare system would provide for them and I wouldn't have to pay alimony or child-support anymore. I wonder why she didn't like the idea?"

I ground out my cigarette in the well-used ashtray and stood up to go. "Ed, you could be making a fortune programming on Wall Street. Why don't you?"

He was quiet for a while before answering. "I've got a window upstairs in my office. I can look out of it and see things other than buildings. I can even open it. If I went back into the corporate world, I'd have to give up my window." He paused. "You know, everyone should have a window. Fewer people are getting them. No one is going to take my window away from me."