About Me

Me, Briefly

A personal introduction and statement of intention for publishing these writings.

Posted: 2025-Jun-19

The Elemental Me

I was born in the last year of the Baby Boom into an essentially all-white, all-Mormon, farming community in Southern Utah. My progenitors migrated to Southern Utah and Nevada from various European countries in the mid-1800s after joining the Mormon church. They came seeking eternal salvation and to establish a Zion society on earth.

Six decades later, I am no longer Mormon, no longer white (certainly not by self-identity and mindset, if not by fractional lineage calculations), and no longer working toward a socio-theological Zion as the precursor to the Millennial reign of Jesus. Instead, I am seeking to achieve the personal spiritual and emotional health necessary for finding joy for myself and for contributing to the joy of my family and my community.

Childhood

In one telling, my childhood was idyllic—with life anchored around a loving, extended family and the freedom and security to roam and play anywhere in a town where everyone knew me, or at least knew whose boy I was. It culminated with achieving the near-mythical, small-town dream (at least for my town) of being on a “State Championship Basketball Team.”

In another telling, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (not by a literal family member) and a descendant of paternal and maternal families with secrets, dysfunction, and emotional dis-health. My father’s joke was that the families of his four grandparents were so ornery and difficult that Brigham Young sent them all to settle the same town because nobody wanted to live near them.

Both tellings are “true,” and one does not negate the other. My desire is to hold onto the idyllic, while healing from the traumas and achieving emotional and relational health.

Professional Life

I have never truly found my professional niche. Other than reading, my oldest and deepest love is quantum physics, of which I have acquired a reasonably sound conceptual understanding, at least for a hobbyist. Regrettably, due to my inability to successfully combine collegiate basketball with a full course-load of math and science, I switched to English literature after one semester (but never played basketball beyond my Freshman year).

I often wonder what path my life would have taken had I pursued quantum physics; however, I also am self aware enough to realize that there were too many unresolved issues and traumas in my life for me to have enjoyed linear success in any endeavor. It may be that the erratic meanderings of my life were requisite to finally reaching a place of spiritual peace and relative emotional health.

After obtaining a B.A. in English, I attended Georgetown University Law Center, which was profoundly enlightening for me both personally and intellectually. It was my first inkling that the world may, in fact, be very different than I had been led to believe while growing up within a social, cultural, and theological hegemony.

After law school, I practiced criminal defense law in Maryland (where my eyes were fully opened to the reality of systemic police brutality condoned by the courts). After practicing a few years, I learned that an attorney could remain busy while not earning an adequate living. I simply could not turn away clients who desperately needed legal services but who could not pay my full rate. Out of financial pressure, I transitioned to corporate counsel and later served as counsel to the Ethics Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

My work with the Ethics Committee opened a path into international development, and I implemented democracy and governance projects in various countries in Africa. A near-fatal bout of malaria, followed by recurring bouts of malaria, pushed me back to the States. Of all my professional experiences, my work promoting democracy, human rights, and good governance has been the most gratifying and fulfilling. To this day, I still regret leaving my last posting in Nigeria following a bout of malaria that required my third hospitalization.

Since 2017, I have been working in the logistics sector, first as a company driver, then with my own truck, then as safety manager for a freight carrier, and now as a company driver again. I realize that driving a truck will seem incongruous with my previous work, but it truly has been the most valuable work I have done. While we are doing fine financially, and it has seen us through a pandemic, the real value has been the time and solitude to simply think about life. I have had the privilege of working through personal, spiritual, and relational deficiencies. That work is ongoing, but it has already changed my life immeasurably for the better.

I transitioned to logistics with aspirations to build a small fleet of trucks, as my grandfather had done; however, in the process of analyzing my load revenue and route planning, I began to teach myself coding and became a certified data analyst, which led me towards data rather than driving. My position as safety manager had allowed me to combine my logistics experience with my data analytics proficiency. I did not foresee returning to driving; however, I encountered circumstances that were too misaligned with my values to continue as safety manager. I knew it would be better to sleep well on a truck than to sleep fitfully at home. I am unsure what the future holds, but I am certain that, for the moment, I am right where I need to be.

Personal Life

I suppose it is no revelation to say that my personal life is fraught with more angst and regrets than my professional life. It is challenging to be vulnerably honest, yet fair and considerate, to myself and to those who have been closest to me throughout my life. I remain uncertain whether I can share fully those aspects and experiences of life that reflect poorly on myself and others.

I married young, was blessed with four children, then divorced. I remarried and was blessed with two more children. As with every person whom I have known who has divorced with children, I have regrets about the marriage, but I cannot imagine life without the four children from the marriage.

Unfortunately, the children always suffer the most from the dissolution of a marriage, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. It is of little solace to know that the marriage was unsustainable, or that in truth, the marriage was not fair or healthy for either party. Kids, even as adults, don’t really care about or understand such an assertion.

I remain deeply spiritual, though I have left behind my Mormon upbringing particularly, Christianity generally, and organized religion entirely. The process of deconstructing the theology and world view that was deeply ingrained in me from before my earliest memories (the formal indoctrination of Mormon children begins at 18 months) has consumed more time and energy than I care to admit even to myself. For decades, I devoted uncountable hours and unquantifiable energy attempting to reconcile the theology and practices of Mormonism with objective science and my personal experiences. In the end, I simply trusted science and experience over dogma and tradition. It has been liberating, enlightening, and grounding . . . precisely the opposite outcomes that the indoctrination told me would be the fates of those who abandoned the faith.

To be clear, I have no objection whatsoever if people find value, meaning, and peace in their respective faiths, so long as that faith: 1) is freely adopted on the foundation of fully disclosed doctrines and history; and 2) does not harm or exploit others who have not freely adopted the faith.

Why this Website

Over the years, people whom I have admired and respected have encouraged me to share my story. Until now, I have not be prepared or inclined to reveal such personal experiences and feelings so publicly; however, as I have reached an age at which the final event horizon does not seem so distant, it almost feels "now or never." More precisely, if my older children are ever to know me in any meaningful way, it will have to be through my writing.

My deepest desire is that, in learning more about me and of what transpired decades ago that derailed their idlyic life as deified in Mormon theology, my children may have some desire to reconnect before time runs out. Even if that is ultimately an unrealized aspiration, I hope it will offer some insight and, perhaps, some solace to my children regarding who I was, and who I hope to become...and perhaps be of some value to others who stumble upon it.