Introduction
We can't expect the laws of the universe to agree with our little whims. -- Robert Benelux, "My Best Guess At The Truth"
I'm Norman. I wrote this story. I'm your narrator. I'm not really a fiction writer, I actually write software for a living. The story about Robert is just something I've been meaning to get out, and if you're reading it, that means I actually managed.
The kind of guy that Robert was, well, I can't tell you in just this paragraph. You'll have to keep reading. And if I get it right, I hope you'll get a pretty good idea of what he was like. But you ought to know this from the start: He was very sure of what he understood was good, and what he understood was bad. (His understandings didn't always correlate with mine, but they did the vast majority of the time.) And bad, to him, was unacceptable. This, probably more than anything else, was the reason for the good things that happened to Robert, and the bad.
Robert was born to John and Maria Benelux at 3:12 PM on 24 August 1971. He weighed 3.6 kg, and had a birthmark on the back of his head, that, after his hair grew, only his parents remembered.
John Benelux was of English descent. Five generations prior, his working class paternal ancestor lived in Yorkshire. And he transfused his aspirations, and all his emotional and financial resources into raising his elder son. We have no idea what happened to his less fortunate younger son. His descendants are probably still in Yorkshire, constructing constructions, and tallying columns. But the descendants of the elder son include doctors and diplomats, soldiers and sales reps amongst their number; British empire builders. John Benelux was no empire builder. No, he was far greater. He was an empiricist.
His degrees were scientific in nature. Zoology. Information Systems Management. You could say that at the start of his career, John acquired and tested knowledge. He went on to manage the tools that allow people to find that knowledge. And he ended up managing the people that manage those tools.
Robert's mother, Maria, on the other hand, was a nurse. And of German descent. Her mother had also been a nurse, and her father an engineer. Maria placed less importance on her genealogy than her husband did, and as a result I know less about Robert's German heritage. But I do know that Maria's ancestors include a number of professors and doctors. They were an academic family. Probably the kind Robert's paternal ancestor aspired to five generations before.
Benelux is an unusual English surname. Robert's father reckoned he must be descended from a candle maker. A good one.
Why am I telling you all this? Because knowing where Robert came from will give you an idea of who he was, and why.
Both his parents worked hard. Both his parents were intelligent. And he certainly got his clear understanding of right and wrong, from his parents. They were what you would call good people.
Robert also had an older sister. She was 5 years older than him, and they were never really all that close -- they always lead separate lives. In that respect, his independence was apparent from an early age. And he probably inherited that from his mother. She left Germany and her family to be with her husband.
So those are the ingredients that made up Robert. This story is what he did with them.
Robert Benelux wrote a rather esoteric book with the misleadingly simple title of "My Best Guess At The Truth". He published it himself with some inheritance money. Publishers don't generally go in for books like his.
He would have remained unknown if a copy hadn't found its way into the hands of a talk show host. Not a TV talk show, a podcast talk show.
A lot of writers write better than they talk. Robert didn't write badly, but he certainly spoke well. Or, more specifically, he explained well. Which is very useful, when your topic of choice starts with how God is the anthropomorphic personification of the ultimate laws of the universe across all levels of complexity. And that's just the start.
Within 25 minutes Robert had shown that well known religious figures, and some rather obscure ones too, taught us not only psychology and sociology, but a little genetics and some climatology too. And his aurally fetching interviewer, Bianca Black, had called him Prophet Bob.
The Internet has a way of spreading a good thing faster than a venereal disease through a pre-revolutionary French court.
Next thing you know, Robert is getting some very encouraging phone calls asking for Mr Benelux. And some very discouraging mail addressed to Prophet Bob.
