If you are here, someone I know told you about this site. That makes you a friend and I am glad to meet you (digitally).
I’m not doing SEO, looking to showcase my writing style or impress anyone with information. The site’s name came from what my kids call me: “Pa”.
I love to read, learn and talk about what I’m learning with my closest friends and family.
This blog is an extension of that conversation. It is also a place to showcase my hobby, Being Pa.
As of today, Dec 30, 2017 I have 10 children. 8 biological and 2 adopted. My wife is a saint, and having a big family was part of her childhood dream. I also looked forward to the adventure of parenting. I didn’t think we would have 10 kids in 10 years, but it has been a fun and crazy adventure.
As far as biographical information: I had an unusual childhood, I grew up in East Asia and moved to the United States for college. My parents were US citizens, and I lived in California and Virginia until the age of 5. From 1989 –2001 my Dad taught English and studied language in the University. My parents lived overseas until 2009.
Growing up in a culture different than my parent’s native culture, learning to speak another language in my childhood and early teens gave me an appreciation for the beautiful and varied tapestry of human existence.
Understanding that the sound you make for a word isn’t as important as the meaning you attach to that word is a priority for me.
I’m an electrician by trade, but I went to college to train horses in New Mexico. I started a digital marketing firm for a couple years: plantcreative.co, but now I am back in the electrical field as a maintanence electrician. My brothers and I started an insurance restoration company, Bay Brothers Co. the beginning of 2017 and I work there part time.
I was raised Baptist, but grew up I studying Tibetan Buddhism,Shamanism, Taoism and Communism. In college I also began researching Mormonism and Judaism. The purpose was for apologetics, to argue people over to our faith. But I found the motivations and explanations of “being” described in different faiths fascinating.
My parents didn’t give me a negative view of the Protestant faith, many times in my teens as I quizzed them about what “we believed” they were always very clear when they were telling me something that they believed personally and when the answer was something that they were “taught”. This led to a spiritual journey that didn’t require me to reject my parents as I questioned their faith. If I didn’t agree with something it was “blind tradition” which wasn’t stifling to me, it was just a “misunderstood” tenet that needed to be meshed with reality.
My plan in college was to complete a horse whispering course and return to the highlands of Tibet and work to convert Tibetans to Protestantism. I ended up staying in New Mexico for almost 4 years and working with Native Americans from Navajo, Shoshone, Pueblo and Apache tribes.
I had a brother 2.5 years younger than me, and in college we became very close. We worked through the sibling rivalries we had growing up, and lived and worked together on a ranch in New Mexico.
We moved back to the East Coast and began working together to try and sort through life and careers. We had some mystical religious experiences together and constantly wrote music, talked, argued and got up to mischief.
One day in 2007 on his way to visit me he was hit by a pickup truck on the highway and killed. This was definitely a pivotal moment in my life.
What do you do when your best friend and most intimate confidant is suddenly gone?
I handled the shock well at first. My initial response was, “I’m glad I got to know my brother for 21 years, some people never get to have a friendship like this.”
However, over the course of 5–7 years a deep resentment and anger filled my gut as I came to blame the Supreme Being for crummy design specifications in reality.
Externally I was happily married, working a good paying job, bought a house, was busy with lots of little kids and babies, but inside I was hollow and dark. I seethed with anger at the state of being.
My original ideal of returning to East Asia and proselytizing seemed hollow and meaningless.
People commended me on learning languages quickly, but I never found a job to use that skill. I entered a 4 year electrician apprenticeship because I wanted to fix and flip houses, and the electrician was always the most expensive part of that process.
But 6–7 years into the trade I was working back breaking labor, still didn’t have the capital to do real estate investing full time. My job was constantly under threat of layoffs. I felt that I was not doing fulfilling work, or a part of a purpose or group of people with a mission; but didn’t know what fulfilling work would be.
My Dad had a run-in with the company he worked with in East Asia for 20 years and they basically asked him to resign.
This added to my resentment at religious hierarchies and the Supreme Being himself.
My internal state was so negative it began to affect my relationship with my wife. I ended up feeling alone, even with all the outside signs of a full and good life.
Then one day as I walked through Books a Million my eye caught the title of a book: “Proof of Heaven”
Fully prepared to scoff I looked at the back of the book and saw the surgeon who wrote the book was from the same small town in Virginia where I was born. I was in Books a Million and I picked up the book written by a doctor in my US hometown.
As I read the book and his account of his Near Death Experience a glimmer of hope flickered in my depressed soul.
His account of life beyond the body and this human existence touched something deep in my core.
And that was the beginning of a birth of new hope in my heart.
I’ve talked about this process many times with my brothers and a few friends. I like to read a lot, and expose myself to lots of new ideas.
Some of the ideas and perspectives I encounter and share with my inner circle lead us down wild rabbit holes and stir strong emotions.
I now view the years of frustration and dark feelings as an orchestrated de–construction, and view the world with a lot of hope and anticipation.
I’ve taken notes in my journals and talked late into the nights about many of these new ideas, but I’ve never sat down systematically to write out the intellectual journey in a concise way to share with others.
If you were referred to this blog by one of these confidantes, I hope you find interest and hope in the other posts about these conversations and concepts.
I’m glad you’re here and wish you the best in your journey of life.
PA