Cromwell: A Cautionary Tale of Love and Loss

Date: Autumn, 1995. Physical place(s): Northwestern University, Evanston IL; UVA, Charlottesville VA. Ethereal location: alt.angst, Usenet.

The year I ventured past my comfort zone into cyberspace.

Free internet access and an email address were complimentary perks associated with my acceptance into one of the nation's top colleges, the moment I registered as a freshman in 1993. This was back in the days when dialup AOL charged by the hour. Back then, I was a neo-Luddite -- opposed to technology on sheer principle, out of a visceral mistrust of power: a consequence of my parents' miscalculations raising me. It took me two full years of spiraling despair to achieve the desperate courage to apply for my email address. To seek out new life, new civilizations. To boldly go...

Split infinitives aside, eventually I decided that being aggressively alone did not necessarily constitute a virtue. I tuned in, turned on... but felt no obligation to drop out. I did, however, find myself connecting with a VERY weird group of people.

I'd known, from early childhood, that I was irrevocably weird. My mother was bipolar, my father was an abusive drunk. My brother has heard the voice of GOD telling him to kill his son. Schizophrenia is poorly understood by humanity generally, but I suspect (as a skeptic) that it is an extreme version of our innate ability to recognize patterns, coupled with a yearning for meaning which is rooted in the fact that our consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. We all want to believe we are real, that we have meaning independent of anything we ourselves create. 

So. In 1995 I signed up. I sought out the other weirdos. I found alt.angst.

I shared my story, for the first time ever. I crafted poetry that still blinds me with its truth. I told the truth, despite every instinct telling me I shouldn't. Couldn't. I was so deep in despair, I didn't see anything else. Lies were so utterly worthless; I knew that, whether or not I knew anything. 

Cromwell came to me as a savior. He came to me in pain and sorrow, a victim of the American South and its Puritanical worldview. He came to me as a soulmate, as a light in August, as William Faulkner and Walker Percy. I shared hours and hours of expensive phone-time with this young man, David Bjorlin, who convinced himself I was the semi-schizo heroine of The Second Coming.

What a letdown. What a disappointment! For him. When I spent my father's borrowed money to meet him in 1996. I was 5 foot 9, and a size 14.

It took me more than a decade to realize that being too short is the equivalent, in males, of being too fat in a woman. All I saw was his all-too-explicable rejection. It never registered for me when David Perry told me that Cromwell told him, "She was bigger than me, what can I say?" All I could register was that I was wrong. Unfit.

I'm posting this, ostensibly, as a cautionary tale. Against seeking soulmates in cyberspace. People are weak. They are shallow, not by inclination, but by design. The design of the ruling class. 

None of us deserve to be pawns in class warfare! 

It IS possible to elude. To avoid. To circumvent! The paradigm. It is possible to reject those who seek to program you. But you'll never achieve that following the path of Cromwell. Truth is messy. It's complex. It's not an ideology. It's the fucking reality behind your perception, and there are (potentially) as many perceptions as there are perceivers. JUDGE YOUR FELLOW HUMANS AT YOUR PERIL.

How Does Your Light Shine, In the Halls of Shambala?

Spring Equinox, 1975. Doctors told my mother I was a dead thing in my mother's womb.

Susan Phyllis Keir Faucher was a reluctant flower-child hippie in mid-70's Memphis, TN. Her father, Stephen Duncan Keir, was a WWII veteran officer who had volunteered to venture into Vietnam. Susan's classmates at Millington Central High School had denigrated her as the daughter of a collaborator. A daughter of The Man. Peer pressure led her to personal drug experimentation, which led her to a "rehab facility," where she met William Franklin Faucher. Like her, Bill was the son of a Naval Air Force veteran. His family were lower-class; his father never achieved officer status. Both families were children of the Great Depression, and in terms of 70's socioeconomics -- the rehab-clinic military connection was more than enough to constitute a fresh start. A new beginning.

"Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain

With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala

Ah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind
On the road to Shambala
Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind
On the road to Shambala

Ah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala?"

I was born in the spring of 1975. Family lore tells me my father cried that day, because my mom had had 4 previous miscarriages. I've no evidence of this, but it makes sense, given her history & lifestyle. Susan was the child of a Yankee military father and a Southern belle mother. She was born in 1951 on a military base at Chincoteague, VA (famously home of feral horses). A crucial part of her adolescence was spent at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


My father (who may or may not have raped me) was born in San Diego, CA in 1953. His father's (unknown) people came from Orange County, Massachusetts. His mother's came from rural TN. Somehow, Bill & Susan ended up in the same rehab clinic in Memphis in 1974. Just in time to fall in love... and merge to make ME.


I was a dead thing in Susan's womb, corrupt and weak. I should never have been born. Against all odds, I stole my first breath on 23 May, 1975. Bill and Susan wept.


I am sharing this to explain what an improbably angry hippie I am. Poverty tends to nix IQ scores. Performance is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. But there are exceptions.

I myself am "exceptional."

I consciously chose (free will? maybe?) to mate with an exception. Therefore, my offspring are even more consciously exceptional, even more self-aware, than I am. I'd caution you, except I'm hoping they'll take you all UNAWARE.

Why I Married Sheldon Cooper

Well, okay. Not literally. Sheldon Cooper is a fictional character, and while I myself am likely an illusion, my empirical husband almost certainly exists. The parallels between my darling homunculus (a pet name for him, which I posted online years before Penny used it for Leonard) and the character of Sheldon will be obvious to anyone who has watched the show and encountered Jonah Thomas online. Obvious at a glance -- to me suspiciously obvious, even eerie -- including details like Jonah's published plan to solve the conflict in the Middle East, which Sheldon also offers in "The Jerusalem Duality."

(As a person whose family history includes bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, I must take care when confronting coincidences. I don't have the luxury of the layman, whose magical thinking passes unnoticed, deemed harmless. My creativity is real and it has claws.)

Nevertheless. It doesn't take much of a mental leap to see similarities between "high-functioning" people on the Spectrum.

People like my husband -- people like Sheldon and Sherlock -- are almost always portrayed in fiction as outside the realm of normal human intercourse. Their relationships with others are characteristically few and atypical. There is a recurring motif of insensitivity, as if rationality is somehow incompatible with empathy. One cannot avoid the implication that such a person could never connect with someone who is emotionally vulnerable.

In my experience, the truth is utterly the opposite.

I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child. As a toddler I learned -- instinctively -- to trust no one. No one at all. As a naturally emotional individual, I secretly yearned to be appreciated and understood, but the extreme wariness I acquired from my dysfunctional parents prevented me from connecting with anyone -- until I encountered the internet.

For all its flaws, the internet is a place where strangers can meet safely. Strange people who would never have connected with one another in the course of ordinary "real" life. I was a mathematics student at Northwestern University when I first encountered the man I would marry: he was trolling the Usenet group alt.angst, a place I posted prose poetry.

(My children still can't overcome their incredulity that I married an internet troll.)

Why did I marry him? Why have I remained his partner for almost 18 years?

The answer lies embedded within the theme of this blog: "Reflections on the Myth of Sanity." Assertion: no modern human can claim sanity. On one level or another, we are all insane. Human intellectual achievement has eclipsed our biological evolution. Our brains can't cope with what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. Our brains lie to us all the time. My hypothesis is that people with "Asperger's syndrome" exhibit superior objective clarity to those who prefer self-delusion (which includes almost everyone, even myself).

Therefore I submit, as a pragmatic suggestion -- that persons who have been abused should seek out persons who fall within the Spectrum. These people can be trusted where others cannot. They will not soften their words to comfort you, which means you will have to be strong; nevertheless, they will not casually lie to you. They will not manipulate you. My Asperger's husband actually enjoys sex more than I do. Yet he is okay with my boundaries; he knows that my aversion to physical intimacy has nothing to do with him personally.

Sex & Self: Identity and the Illusion of Agency

For a long time now, I have puzzled over the question of why humans are so messed up about sex. Why is human sexuality everywhere so fraught with shame, denial, even loathing? Why do human societies impose so many rules on acts of procreation and/or pleasure? No other species on this planet behaves as  self-conflictedly, as weirdly, as we do when it comes to sex.

Our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, exist in two forms; two distinct subspecies of the genus Pan: "regular" chimpanzees and the bonobos. Separated by the formation of the Congo River around 2 million years ago, these subspecies are similar physically (99.6% identical DNA) but differ drastically in their social behavior. Especially when it comes to sex. Chimpanzees are led by an "alpha male" and maintain social order through aggression; bonobos are matriarchal, far less aggressive, and actively keep peace via sex.

Both chimpanzees and bonobos are highly intelligent social species. Both have evolved a functioning social structure. In terms of the physical manifestations of sexuality, humans are more similar to bonobos in that human female fertility is "hidden" -- there is no obvious physical change that signals a human female's fertility. Yet our behavior more closely resembles that of chimpanzees.

The discipline of evolutionary psychology is relatively new. And (for obvious reasons) subject to controversy. I am a mere amateur, a layperson curious about the human condition. Therefore my musings are offered freely, bearing no real weight.

Ancestral humans diverged from chimpanzees somewhere between 13 and 4 million years ago. Specifics are difficult to measure given that the fossil record is so scant. Nevertheless, it is manifest that modern human brains are ~3x larger than those of our earliest human-like ancestors. Our cognitive abilities, our capacity for reason, have eclipsed every other trait we possess.

(I have a personal theory that intelligence has evolved in almost every phyla -- from slime molds to plants to octopus to birds to elephants and dolphins. Which is neither here nor there, with respect to my point in this post.. yet I find it telling that our "efforts" to engage intellectually with other species mostly have involved great apes).

MY THEORY: our brilliant brains have, inadvertently, proved to be our downfall. Excessive self-awareness is too painful to contemplate for the vast majority of human beings. We fear our lack of free will, our helplessness in the face of who we are. We invent stories that grant us agency where none honestly exists.

I was sexually and emotionally abused as a child. Those experiences stripped from me a basic trust that most people take for granted. Like Cassandra, I see -- so clearly -- disturbing truths. Where others cannot. I see what we don't want to see.

For example: sexual attraction is not something we necessarily choose. I see it as being like breathing. A semi-autonomous reflex. You can control your breathing to an extent; you can even consciously stop breathing for a time. Yet ultimately, breathing will happen (if physically possible) regardless of your will.

My primary evidence for this is anecdotal. I think it bothers us. Seriously. That we do not actually choose our attractions. I have never been able to enjoy sexual intimacy. Even kissing leaves me cold. I have a libido but it is only useful in terms of fantasy; I simply can't enjoy normal sex, despite being partnered with someone I completely trust. I was imprinted wrong.

Despite my active dedication to self-awareness and logic, it's been difficult for me to accept the fact. That I am sexually broken, through no fault of my own. My schizophrenic brother believes a literal demon inhabited the house we grew up in. It's hard for me to deny his claims when I know his "madness" comes from the same place as my creativity. It's a matter of sensing patterns -- Starbuck's pebbles. I see my conscious, at-cause self as a person in the ocean: I have the power to swim, but the ocean is inevitably bigger than me. Its currents will pull against me. Things living in it will try to consume me. I am at an automatic disadvantage; claiming I'm not can only harm me.

St. Jennifer-of-the-Knife Groks the Zeitgeist

I think the thing that bothers me most about the farcical travesty of this Inauguration Day is how personal it feels. I am a reluctant citizen, inclined by nature and nurture to regard with skepticism the social contracts* so cherished by those who portray themselves responsible adults. My parents, though they possessed strong political views, never voted, and did little to inculcate within me anything resembling a sense of civic duty. My father, especially, held to the opinion that voting was pointless, because everything was rigged.
If you want to know what my father was like, think Archie Bunker, just a little more drunk and abusive. Maybe a little smarter, probably a little less ethical. It's the intelligence and lack of ethics that concern me here and now. Passed down as they were, from him to myself.

If I was the person I was supposed to be. If I was the person my father tried to teach me to be. I would be delirious with delight right now. Ecstatic at the overturning of an age of corruption. Giddy with seraphic glee, I would welcome this turning of tables, which I had predicted from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy.

Alas. While the prediction was precise, my sentiments are.. dubious? Unconscionable would be a better word, and yet... I will not deplore that I feel the way I feel.

It's taken me a long time to acknowledge. To accept. That feelings are valid, in and of themselves. Right or wrong, they are real and have to be faced. It's been difficult for me to come to terms with the truth that emotion and logic are both so strong inside me, and that they in no way negate one another. I've found no convenient cancellation,  so perforce I face the paradoxical predicament that is self-awareness.

As I look at our nation, at the choices we've faced during this past year, I see.... myself, flinching from a mirror. In one hand, a shard of glass. Poised to slice the other hand's palm.

As a veteran of self-loathing, I assure you: the reason matters not. Excuses are empty. What matters is that something's wrong, Anything's wrong, everything's wrong. I am wrong, and my penance will purge. Will make this right.

Whether we admit it or not, we are one people. One people, forged from conflicting fires. Fires coruscating with strange colors which all eyes may not see. Pristine purity and unscrupulous avarice are no more incommensurate than fierce compassion and relentless reason, after all.

We are one people and we hate what we are.

So much of history remains untaught. So many voices remain unheard. We see the same world, from more perspectives than there are stars in the sky. It's no wonder (to me) that we destroy ourselves, again and again. I wish I could have warned you in time. I wish you would have listened. But I was brought up to believe that I'll never be believed.

*But really, who wouldn't be skeptical of the very concept of social contracts, after learning how one of the most ardent and enlightened proponents of such spent a large part of his career attacking colleagues in an attempt to square the circle? What a tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night!

A Brief Message to the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy

I am a dandelion, the most awesome plant ever.

Dandelions are despised for their ability to cheerfully survive all attempts to eradicate them. They thrive in chaotic conditions. They are smart: their stalks will grow short or tall depending on whether they are being mowed. They are beautiful at all stages of life: golden aggregate flower heads bright as the sun, wispy puffballs pale as the moon, drifting seeds like stars that can float five miles to begin a new life. They don't need to be pollinated to reproduce, but they welcome bees and butterflies anyway.

Every part of the dandelion is edible and nutritious. The fact that it tastes bitter reflects the lesson of the dandelion's life: unpleasant experiences can be good for us. Determination to live, and live well, in the face of the contempt of the world.

I am a dandelion. I ruin rich people's lawns. I give without expectation of being understood. Blow me.

In Defense of Compassion

The word "compassion" entered the English language in the mid-14th century as a loanword from French, derived from the ecclesiastical Latin term compassionem: com "together" + pati "to suffer."

That sense of "together" makes compassion more powerful than pity, and while "sympathy" is the precise Greek cognate of "compassion," its value has declined somewhat after centuries of neglect. Given the state of the world at this moment, as we stand on the edge of chaos with our collective illusions unraveling like the saddest security blanket, we require the strongest word possible for a much-maligned virtue. We believed (or pretended to believe) that our beloved blanket, called by so many names (society, culture, civilization, status quo) was a shining shield. Armor against any enemy, within or without. Such whimsical wards work surprisingly well — until they don't. Illusions are literally lies and their power works like a placebo, proportional to belief. Uncertainty is the natural enemy of authority yet it lacks vigor, always shadowed by fear, anger and confusion — peak 2020 zeitgeist aesthetic. Our frayed, shabby blanket has started to burn. 

To survive this crisis, we need something stronger than lies. Real problems require real power. There are three things that are never wrong: Compassion, Curiosity, and Courage Compassion is an emotional engagement with the perception of the sufferings or misfortunes of others. 

COMPASSION IS NEVER WRONG.

I spend (maybe too much) time perusing comments on trending news topics from a wide range of internet communities. I explore, investigate, seek to find out what people are thinking and feeling. Curiosity is a virtue that complements compassion, and by "virtue" I mean "strength." ("Virile" and "virtuous" come from the same Latin word; Roman culture did not distinguish between manliness and moral worth). Knowledge is power, and I'll take any potential I can use.

Perception of the pain of others comes before compassion. And yes, I think I am good at recognizing what other people feel. I suspect that being raised in an abusive family heightened my sensitivity. My mother believed she was psychic, and while I was always dismissive of her faith in the paranormal, she did have a knack for intuiting things, particularly about my brother. Sadly, it took me years of adult experience, along with finding out about the existence of mirror neurons and oxytocin, for me to start thinking seriously about the pragmatic importance of empathy.

There is a kind of spectrum among humans with respect to the skill of recognizing distress in others; nevertheless, the vast majority of people are capable of it. My husband has Asperger's, and he is unquestionably able to empathize. His disconnect is mostly about ambiguous, arbitrary or illogical social expectations. I think it's telling that autistic people often connect strongly with animals; the essential empathy is there, it's just not complicated by arcane social assumptions and the deceptions, to oneself and to others, that are inevitably entailed. In fact, scientists have shown that animals are capable of recognizing emotions and responding with compassion.

Of course, compassion is not the only possible emotional response to the suffering of another person. Alternatives include indifference, delight, satisfaction, even envy. And although I emphatically advocate cultivating compassion, I'm not interested in condemning those who cultivate these alternatives. Because I have done the same. I understand the many reasons people have for being averse to compassion. Central to them all is fear -- fear of the altruistic behavior that compassion can provoke.

I was sexually abused as a child. I have PTSD. I have a PhD in fear. It's been a struggle, but I've taken to heart the Bene Gesserit litany:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

When I say, "Compassion is never wrong," I am saying, "It is never wrong to reject fear." And I am saying this as someone who knows that people are dangerous. To themselves, to others, and to me. There are no safe places in this world.

I cannot count the times over the past year that I've seen people castigate others for expressing compassion. On all sides of almost every issue. Sometimes the assumption is that by perceiving someone's situation and feeling compassion for them, you are making an excuse for their behavior. People also attack others for showing compassion for one group of people and not another. All of that is rooted in fear -- fear that sympathy will lead to altruism which will benefit someone dangerous.

My intent here is not to endorse or prescribe any specific act of altruism. I'm a mom with two daughters. I know how complicated it can be, trying to balance competing interests while maximizing the family's well-being. Altruism doesn't mean giving people whatever they want. Biologists describing altruism in animals define it as "an act benefiting another at cost to oneself." The concept of "cost" in human terms is extremely complicated, which is why I'm keeping things simple. Compassionate behavior can make you vulnerable. Being vulnerable is not the same as being weak. In fact, the stronger you are, the more compassionate you can be.

Right now, the antithesis of altruism is trending all over the world. I call it spite -- "an act intended to harm another at cost to oneself." Spite is terrorism and military aggression. It is vicious speech of every kind. Spite is when anger blinds you to the costs of your behavior. Anger masks fear; it doesn't banish it. Anger often feels good, justified, even noble. Anger and fear are primal emotions with an ancient evolutionary history -- fight or flight. Compassion is more complicated; it involves acknowledging that the fear and anger of others is the same as your own.

It is all too easy to force people into states of fear and/or anger. Compassion, by its very nature, can never be enforced. It can only be tended, defended, encouraged, coaxed. Punishing people for not showing compassion is not compassion; it is spite.

It isn't instinctive for me to think positively with so much terror and rage breaking free around me. It has always been difficult for me to avoid being pulled along by emotional trends (a minor drawback of strong empathy). And I admit that I'm a naturally pessimistic person. I don't believe in the inevitability of progress. I do believe in the possibility. Our understanding of the human condition continues to grow, building on the shared experience of our species.

The word "monster" (from the Latin root monere "to warn") once literally meant "animal or baby with a birth defect." Because abnormal creatures were regarded as signs or omens of impending evil. We only use the word's figurative meaning now.

Our worldview has changed that much.

The more science discovers about what we are and how we came to be this way, the more opportunities for compassion we will attain.