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Jason Stadtlander
  • Jason Stadtlander

Educators Should Educate – Not Manipulate
Educators Should Educate – Not Manipulate 1024 926 Jason Stadtlander

In October of 2016 I picked up my children one day from school and my son says, “Daddy, who are you going to vote for?”

I remember looking at him with an expression of concern. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because my teacher said everyone should vote for Clinton.”

I immediately felt a flash of anger. Not because I dislike Hillary Clinton, but because I believe it is vital for children to come to their own conclusions and hear unbiased perspectives, especially from educators. I do not think that any teacher or principal has a right to try and sway my children one way or the other with politics.  I have no problem with them unbiasedly discussing what the political platforms are, and why they (politicians) choose different platforms, but the children should be allowed to come to their own conclusion regarding their own political views.

I got down at eye level with my son and gently grabbed his shoulders, “Son, I will vote for who I feel is the correct person to put into office as the President. Your teacher will do the same, and one day, when you’re old enough – you too will choose the person that you feel is the correct person. Voting is a very personal thing. It is our right granted to us by those who founded our country. Three things you should never discuss until you understand what you are talking about are religion, politics, and money. They are all very personal things, and everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe without it being ridiculed or forced down their throat.”

There is “education,” and then there is “influence.” Influencing causes children to go home and question their parent’s choices that they have spent a lifetime establishing. I’m not saying that a child questioning (or developing their own beliefs) is terrible. What I am saying is that their questioning should not be due to outside manipulation.

It is a parent’s job to teach children about faith (or lack of), political views (both sides – preferably without pushing one or the other), finances and what is right or wrong with regards to sexual preference especially since a parent’s faith can lead this. I can honestly say that any parent that doesn’t teach these things are doing a disservice to their children. A child needs to have the foundation they are raised with and needs to be objectively taught each of these views to be a well-rounded member of society.

I believe it can be handled unbiasedly as follows:

You can explain the liberal platforms, the desire for social programs, their belief in how healthcare should be managed and civil rights – Then you can explain the conservative platforms and how faith sculpts some of their views and how they feel about various political issues.

An educator can explain something without injecting their own personal views. Yes, I know it can be difficult – especially when dealing with children who are curious and want to know their teacher’s views. But there is wanting to know, and needing to know, and I do not feel they need to know. At least not in the classroom environment.

In the meantime, as a parent, I will do my best to try and educate my children on the platforms, what people are hoping for and what people (and myself) want in leaders and world issues. I hope that you as parents will do the same.

The Story Portal
  • Jason Stadtlander

Inside The Story Portal – Podcast Series
Inside The Story Portal – Podcast Series 1024 1024 Jason Stadtlander
The Story Portal

Look for this logo in your podcast app

Two weeks ago I launched my new podcast series “The Story Portal”. I thought I’d take a moment and just fill you in on what it’s all about.

Over my life, I’ve written somewhere around 300 short stories (and I’m always writing more). They range from sci-fi to thriller, to horror and even romantic comedy. Now, although I have submitted many of my stories to magazines, newspapers, and of course I have my anthology Ruins of the Mind coming out next year – the reality is, most of these stories would normally never reach the world.

I have been wanting to practice my narration skills and a weekly podcast seemed like a great way to bring these stories to you while giving you a little entertainment along the way. Each episode averages 25-40 minutes depending on the length of the story  – the perfect length to listen to on a commute. I happen to know that some upcoming episodes might be as short as fifteen minutes.

At the beginning of each episode, I always try to take a moment and tell you a little about how the story came to be and why I wrote it.

Currently, I have two episodes out there; Surviving the Messengers and The Glass Pyramid (both from Ruins of the Mind).  If there is a story of mine you’d really like to hear, just let me know and I’ll record it for you. I may even end up reading my books a chapter at a time at some point in the near future.

Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast listening app to hear all of the episodes each week and I hope to hear from you! Let me know what you think, it means a lot to hear what my listeners (and readers) feel about my work (positive OR negative).

You can listen and subscribe to my podcasts directly on my website at http://podcast.jasonstadtlander.com or on any of these audio apps:

Google PlayiTunesSpotify

 

 

The Ugly Truth About Google
  • Jason Stadtlander

Protect Yourself: The Ugly Truth About Google
Protect Yourself: The Ugly Truth About Google 1000 667 Jason Stadtlander

The more I learn about this internet giant, the more it’s bothering me. So I wanted to take a few moments and relay some of the truths I’ve found. What do you know about Alphabet, Inc.? If you have never heard of the company, you should take some time to learn as much as you can. It’s the multinational conglomerate behind the largest “search engine” in the world; Google, LLC. Most people have heard the names behind these two entities; Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

The two computer scientists created their initial product, Google, 20 years ago (September 4th, 1998). It was a creation that by the middle of the first decade in the 21st century had become a common verb among the millennials, much to the chagrin of English teachers. Even I have routinely recommended to people, “My advice would be to google it and see what you find.”

In recent months, I’ve been pulling back from that advice. Now, am I going to strike out and say that Google is the evil empire and they are working on a new Death Star on the dark side of the moon? No. Google has its place, I’m just finding the more I learn, the more that I don’t want to be a part of it.

“You should protect your personal information as well as you protect your physical property.”

Their (internal) motto “Don’t be evil” was recently changed to “Do the right thing”, which says in and of itself that those who operate the company know the fine line they walk in all of their data collection.

Let’s look at some timeline facts (perhaps even some you don’t know):

  • Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
  • In 1999 the founders tried to sell Google to Excite for $1 Million, but Excite declined the offer 1
  • In 2000 Google launches web searches in 10 new languages 2
  • In 2003 Google Print (which would later become Google Book Search) is created 2
  • In 2004 Google Scholar is created and begins offering scholarly literature and research searching. 3
  • Also in 2004, Google acquires Picasa from Idealab (which would eventually become what we now know of as Google Photos) 4
  • 2006 Google acquires YouTube and creates Google Docs, an online competitor with the popular Microsoft Office. 4
  • 2007 Google launches the Android OS 4
  • 2009 Google Voice launches 4
  • 2015 Alphabet becomes the new parent company of Google after restructuring 4
  • 2017 Google is fined $2.7 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules 4

And now some dark facts about Google:

  • Google has over 251 products, 80% of which are “free” to consumers 5
  • In 2017, Google executive Danny Sullivan laid out the truth that its algorithms are far from perfect stating “We’re not a truth engine.” 6
  • Why are so many of Google’s products (such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive and more) free? Simple: You are their true product. 7
    Here is some of what they are actually learning about you (and what products are revealing this) through these products:

    • Where you browse (Through Google Searching)
    • Where you shop (Through Google Searching & Google Shopping)
    • What you buy when you shop (Through Google Shopping)
    • What movies you like (Through Google Searching)
    • What TV shows you watch and like (Through Google Searching)
    • What photos you are uploading and who is in them (Through Google Photos & Gmail)
    • What kind of car you drive and what type of car you prefer (Through Google Searching)
    • What games you like to play (Through Google Searching / Gmail / YouTube)
    • How you like to spend your spare time (Through Google Searching / Gmail / YouTube)
    • Where you travel (Through Google Searching / Gmail / YouTube & Google Photos [GPS location])
    • What software you’re creating – if you’re a developer (Through Google Searching / Gmail / Google Code / Google Developers)
    • When you wake up (Through Google Alerts / Google Calendar)
    • What books you read (Through Google Books / Gmail / Reader)
    • What music you like and prefer (Google Play Music)
    • What you prefer the temperature of your home to be when you are home and how much you are spending on heating and air conditioning (Google’s Nest Thermostat)
    • The list goes on and on and on…

In short, Google’s products are collecting a MASSIVE amount of data on every single person that is using them. At the moment, most of this data is being used to target advertising to you, provide innovative products that (Google believes) might help you.

I know some of you are thinking, “So what? I don’t have anything to hide. If it makes my life easier, then it’s a small price to pay.” The reality is, that’s not the point. Most people are protective of their physical property; you lock your car, lock your house and don’t leave valuables out in the open unattended at work or at school. You should protect your personal information as well as you protect your physical property. The caveat is, all it takes is for one small mistake for all of this deeply personal information to be under the control of someone else. Anyone using these products is putting an enormous amount of trust in an entity that they truly do not know (or their deeper intentions) to hold a huge amount of personal information about them.

To get a perspective on what Google really knows about you, go here:

So, the big question is; “How do I remove myself from being monitored by all of these products.”

The short answer, it’s not easy. There are a few things you can do to begin the process:

  • You can delete your activity by going to Google’s “Delete Activity” screen: https://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity
  • Go to Google’s “Activity Controls” and pause all of their data collection apps: https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols
  • Change from Gmail over to a hosted email platform (such as GoDaddy or 1and1). You will have to pay a small annual fee, but you get what you pay for (the knowledge that only YOU will have access to your email).
  • Purchase a storage device such as a Synology NAS or a Buffalo TeraStation to keep your files, photos, and videos on. All of these products allow you to store your files at your own home and still be able to access them remotely on your laptop, through a browser or from your mobile device (I’ll be happy to help you understand this more if you want).
  • Stay away from Google.com to search (which collects your data) or Bing.com (which gets paid to control it’s search results).
  • Start using a search engine that doesn’t track your search activity such as Duck Duck Go or Startpage.

Not long ago, “big data” companies such as Google found that the best product in the world was “you”. It is understandable and in many ways makes our life easier. I feel, however, that we should have control over how much information we are actually allowing these companies to collect on us.

Our "It's All About Me" Communication
  • Jason Stadtlander

Our “It’s All About Me” Communication
Our “It’s All About Me” Communication 2048 1536 Jason Stadtlander

Humans are very selfish creatures; this is not exactly something new. My good friend Doug Obey wrote in his book “Money and the Human Condition” that capitalism works so well because it harnesses our selfish nature to better our society. As hard is it is to accept, this statement is true.

It is my personal belief that as our technological society advances, our selfish nature is showing itself more and more and there are far too many tools to help us become even more selfish.

It’s About Them

Typically, when I go to text someone, especially someone I communicate with regularly – I tend to (want to) blurt out whatever my question is. I am trying to change this etiquette to embrace a more altruistic perspective. For example, instead of just stating the first thing that is on MY mind “How do I get this to work?”, I try to preface it with “Hello [name], how are you? I hope all is well.” THEN I add my inquiry.

The very nature of email and text allows us to be much more informal than we otherwise might intend to be in a professional environment. And yes, I know what you’re going to say “But if I’m just texting my brother a question, why ask how he is?” etc. The answer; For the simple reason that it is more important to put their needs before yours. From a selfish point of view, being unselfish begets what you want faster. Seeing someone ask how you or stating their hopes for your well being before they ask you a question is more likely to grab your attention than an intrusive question that you would prefer to get back to later. Keep in mind, we send texts and emails because we know they are less invasive, but the fact is, someone is stopping whatever they are doing – even if for only a moment, to give you the attention you are asking. So we need to respect that time that they are taking and begin by asking how they are.

Pause Before You Send

Even when you do not intend to be self-centered, it’s easy to quickly type up something and hit that send button – only to wish you had waited and formulated your thoughts better.
Most email programs have the ability for you to set up a “delay” of a minute or so (which I have implemented on my emails). This delay allows you to reconsider what you sent, go back to your “outbox” and check that the email is worded in a way that will accomplish what you are trying to convey without offending. Unfortunately, you cannot do this with texts. So I urge you (and me) to stop before hitting that send, read through what you have written – it only takes a few extra seconds, and consider how it will be perceived from the other end.
Coming to Terms with Our Digital Past
  • Jason Stadtlander

Coming to Terms With Our (Digital) Past
Coming to Terms With Our (Digital) Past 2000 1333 Jason Stadtlander

We all have ghosts in our closet, whether we want to admit it or not. And the digital age (the last 15-20 years) has created many new elements in our lives including the creation of massive amounts of digital photography, videos, and historic (digital paper) trails.

Hiding Under Your Nose

I recently purchased a NAS (Network Attached Storage), which is just a fancy way of saying “storage server” that holds all of my family photos, videos and every file I’ve ever created. I’m not going to go into the technical side of things with regards to this unit at the moment, but I will say that after combining all my hard drives onto this unit, I now have over 700,000 photographs. Before you freak out, understand that I’m the keeper of our family archives and there are photos going back to the year 1865 on this NAS.

This unit has facial recognition, location recognition, and several other organizational tools on it. In looking through these photos, I found images hidden to me for years (sometimes decades) and I became acutely aware of the fact that there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of pictures of awkwardness; ‘happy families’ now divorced, ex-girlfriends/boyfriends I never wanted to see again, friends that had become enemies and even photos of myself when I was clearly less than happy. I’m not talking about a ton of them, but enough that it makes me stand back and think about things for a moment.

It is incredibly tempting to select all of these photographs and hit the delete key, after all – that is another marvelous capability of the digital age. However, in doing so, I would deny three things:

  1. The ability to see other people that are still very dear to me that are also in these photos.
  2. The ability to look back and for a moment say to myself, “I may not like them, or like the relationship we (or they) now have (or do not have), but at that moment… that brief moment in my life, I was happy with them and they were important enough for me to capture that photo of.”
  3. The fact that one never knows where life will go and what doors may be opened and closed. Many years down the road, do I really want to regret having deleted a photo of this person or this situation?

Coming to Terms

No matter where we go in life from here on out, there are bound to be photos or connections in your collection, someone else’s collection, out on Facebook, on Twitter, news articles or elsewhere. Sometimes you will have the ability to delete these, but most times you won’t. You can choose to ignore these elements that show you (or others you care about) in situations you may not want to remember, but it doesn’t change the fact that they exist. It is in our nature to pretend that elements in our life don’t exist, to ignore them, to cast them aside if they hurt or cause us pain. The reality is, we are only fooling ourselves. To ignore something doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it easier for us to cope.

So I propose this; At some point, you too will go through your old photos, or you will see an article or post online that has you in it. Step back for a moment and instead of ignoring the post, the photo, the video or the connection – instead, ignore the pain. Think about the positive elements that caused you to be a part of that photo, post or article and allow simply to be. It is part of your past, and there isn’t anything you can do to re-write history. Instead, it is how you choose to deal with your past that allows you to handle the present and the future.

Social Media is Building a Culture of Public Judgement
  • Jason Stadtlander

Social Media is Building a Culture of Public Judgement
Social Media is Building a Culture of Public Judgement 2000 1125 Jason Stadtlander

Social media allows us to have the world at our finger tips, news, and information on everything around us including family, politics and natural disasters.

Instant news and instant response is a two edge sword we now live with on a daily, hourly and sometimes minute by minute basis. Not only are we given a chance to instantly (and hopefully relatively unobtrusively) contact someone, but we also tend to feel the need to instantly respond to them in turn. When an event happens, we know about it within minutes, sometimes we know about it in real time.

For example, take the Brett Kavanaugh hearings regarding the sexual allegations toward Christine Blasey Ford. Kavanaugh, who was on the shortlist of nominees for the Supreme Court faced accusations that he sexually assaulted Ford. Within minutes of the story being leaked to the press, it began spreading on Twitter and Facebook. Granted the tumultuous relations between Republicans and Democrats and further fueled by many people’s contempt of President Trump (who nominated Kavanaugh) created a strong burning fire. There is no doubt that this was leaked as a political maneuver.

Immediately as the hearings were going on, minute by minute public judgments were being made and altered before the entire world stage. Even the U.S. president was injecting his opinions before the world on Twitter (without filters).

Do I see a benefit in this? Yes and no. As I said, it’s a two-edged sword. From a fellow U.S. citizen who has very little ability to control any of these situations, it’s nice to be able to see what’s going on while it’s going on, rather than find out after it’s already affecting me. This instantaneousness method of communication allows us as a world citizen to at least feel like we are part of the decision-making process (even if we are not). On the flip side, we can also garner enough people together to indeed make a voice about an issue (take the #metoo movement for example).

Now, on the other side of the sword, social media may impede the ability for jobs to get done because the people making the choices are no longer leading as much as waiting to hear what the consensus is among the people.

Court of Public OpinionMy personal opinion? I don’t like it. It opens up anyone to summary public ridicule and judgments without accurate presentation of evidence. Am I saying that Kavanaugh wasn’t guilty or that Ford didn’t experience what she experienced? No. What I’m saying is that I don’t think it should have been put out there for anyone other than those who can make decisions regarding it. Primarily because it was of a sensitive nature (to all parties) and loops in families with children, spouses, etc.

I think we are too rapidly moving toward a ‘public judgment’ without trial culture with the use of social media.

Living in the Past & Resisting Change
  • Jason Stadtlander

Living in the Past & Resisting Change
Living in the Past & Resisting Change 1920 1080 Jason Stadtlander

I feel stressed and I retract my thoughts to a specific memory in my childhood;

I am seven years old, sitting in my father’s green 1970 Chevy pickup on the grey bench seat, more specifically it’s a grey seat cover that covers the original green seat. The aroma of the hot chocolate I’m holding in my gloved hands is strong. Dad had ordered it for me as I was finishing my breakfast at the Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Wooster we visited on the way to the job site. It was our regular ritual for us, having breakfast at Howard Johnson’s during our weekend drives from our home in Canal Fulton to the farm in Loudonville.

The grey floorboard has some scattered dirt and dust on it and it’s lightly raining outside. The old windshield wipers are slowly swishing back and forth, “I love a rainy night” by Eddie Rabbitt is playing on the AM radio and I can feel the warm heat blowing on my feet. I’m wearing a red hooded high-school sweatshirt with a faded eagle on it that my father used to wear his senior year of high school, jeans and a pair of over-sized work gloves ready to help my dad do some landscaping. I’m waiting on him to come back to the truck as he’s talking to the customer. I get bored and lean over to change the dial on the radio, sweeping the little red needle back and forth. I move it down to the 500 kHz range and I hear the dot-dash beeping of Morse code. I have no idea what they are spelling out, but it intrigues me.

My dad then gets into the truck and stops, looks at the radio and then at me. “What is it, dad?” I ask, referring to the beeping on the radio.

“Aliens,” he replies back matter-of-factly. My eyes grew wide.

“I’m kidding. It’s just someone sending a message by Morse code. Probably a HAM radio operator nearby.”

It’s just a memory, one of many from my childhood that brings me peace. A memory of a simpler time (for me) when money, responsibilities, and life didn’t stress me out. There was no internet, no cell phones and no need for anyone to get anything instantly.

It’s not exactly a news flash that our world feels like it is moving and changing faster than ever in recorded history. The reality is of course that it is changing at pretty much the same speed it has for the last hundred and twenty to hundred and forty years.

A little over a hundred years ago, adults (fifty and over) at the time were grappling to understand why on earth anyone would want to get from place to place so fast using a mechanical vehicle when for thousands of years horses and carriages had served just fine. Seventy years ago adults in the same age bracket were resisting the change of getting a television when a radio worked just fine for the family.

Today it befuddles many adults why technology is changing so often and why they are constantly being forced to learn the new innovative technologies. Many of the changes are beneficial, making life easier. Although the constant need to adapt to newer hardware or applications roughly every five years may not be difficult for someone in their twenties and thirties, by the time a person reaches their fifties and beyond, the ability to learn these new innovations becomes profoundly difficult.

It’s only natural to want to return to the simplicity of your youth and fifty years from now, no doubt our children will want to return to the simplicity of a hand-held mobile phone and being able to text one another to keep in touch.

It is this stress of needing to constantly change that forces many of us to reminisce about those times that were perceptively easier in our own lives. But is it healthy to do so? Retreating to those memories is a stress reliever for most people, including myself. There is, however, a difference between thinking about the past and living in it. The past is familiar, we know what happened and we know what the outcomes are of how the past played out. However, pick a memory, at that exact moment in the past your life was changing. You didn’t know what to expect or where your world would go. It stands to reason that at that moment – you thought about your past beyond then to cope with stress.

We as a civilization move on. The world moves forward and we have no choice but to move along with the flow. We may be able to divert the waters of change here and there, but ultimately there is nothing we can do to stop the fact that it changes. We will never “make things great again” and most likely things were not as ‘great’ as we remember them. The truth is, fifty years from now you will look back and remember how great things were in this time. So, as I continue to tell myself every day – enjoy your memories and hold on to them, but embrace the change of the future and work to make a difference in controlling how that change plays out.

Dreams, Heaven and Hell
  • Jason Stadtlander

Heaven, Hell and Everything in Between (Part 2 of 2)
Heaven, Hell and Everything in Between (Part 2 of 2) 1920 1080 Jason Stadtlander

My second part in this two part (see here for part one) series will discuss a little more about [my views on] Heaven, Hell and the what might happen to our soul or consciousness. I welcome any discussions regarding it in the comments below. Some of this may sound like ramblings, but just hear me out and think about what I’m saying and it might make sense. Also, keep in mind – I am not at all asking you to abandon your own religious beliefs, I’m just saying keep an open mind.

I have, in recent years come to wonder if what lies beyond this physical existence may be closer to what we know as our dreams. There is a part of me that believes that when we die, our consciousness goes on to exist wholly in this place and whether or not it is heaven or hell depends on our own quality of mind. If we continually do things to help others or have kindness in our heart or peace in our soul, then perhaps this realm is peaceful and beautiful. If we do things to torment others or have malice in our heart, then we reap what we sow and are treated as such in this dream like afterlife. It may also stand to reason that we have the same free will in this dream-life as well. If we do wrong others in this dream-life, it may be possible even in this dream afterlife to turn that attitude around and find a peace within and with others.

This is all speculative, of course and just a theory.

In the movie; “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams, Robin’s character Chris dies and perceives heaven and hell as dreams, finding himself living within his wife’s paintings. His wife who commits suicide is trapped in Hell (a continuous nightmare) and Chris works to bring her out of Hell (thus not being condemned to exist there forever). This is the best embodiment of my theories I have ever seen.

Non-Linear Time and Reincarnation

I believe that there is much more to our existence that we can perceive and that time does not truly exist as linear as we feel it does. It is my thought (and the thoughts of others I’ve met) that time exists all at once, past present and future and it is our own physical existence (corporeal existence) that forces us to perceive it as a linear path. In this scenario, perhaps the concept of reincarnation is not quite how we have been taught it might be. Perhaps reincarnation is more the understanding of “omni-time” and the ability to see all time at once, viewing the multiple corporeal embodiments that already exist for our soul?

My father and many people I know would come back and say, what about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (I was raised Christian)? And that is a good question. There’s no reason to believe that these constructs are not real, my perspective is that they just may not exist exactly as we are taught. I once had a dream that I was in this place, a train station (that vaguely resembled Paddington Station), with thousands of other people. The people I met were continuously directing me to “the conductor”. When I got there, I saw a man that looked similar to what we have been taught Jesus must look like. In this dream, Jesus was the conductor of souls, pointing people to trains on one track or another. It’s an interesting idea, but it goes against free will, unless we have the power to say ‘no’ when we are told to go to a specific track. And, if our dream-life operates like a train, taking us from place to place, can we simply jump off the train at any time?

Before I let you go, think about one last concept, if each person that dies goes to Heaven or Hell, imagine the actual quantity of people that would be at any of these given locations. We have 7 billion souls on earth (that are living). It has been calculated that there have been 107 billion people born in human history. But that is just the length that we believe ‘human history’ may exist, there is no reason to believe that we haven’t existed even longer or through multiple iterations of our civilizations.

 

Daddy is Moving Out
  • Jason Stadtlander

Daddy is Moving Out
Daddy is Moving Out 2560 1171 Jason Stadtlander

I have been divorced now for three years and it’s been over four years since I moved out of the townhouse that was ‘home’ for over a decade. The place that my (now ex) wife and I came home to after our wedding and the place that I brought my children back from the hospital to. It’s been four years and only now can I begin to really talk about the impact that it all had on me at the time.

My marriage had been falling apart for years before I moved out and I even tried to move out in 2009, but seeing the shattered look on my three year old and four year old’s face and the thought that they might believe I was leaving them, stayed my hand on the decision – especially given the fact I would be leaving them alone with their mother for long periods of time, something I could not do, given the treatment I had seen and experienced first hand from her. I knew I had to wait until they were old enough to be able to speak up about things they might see or hear.

The reality is, there is never a good time to leave. I waited until 2014 to make my decision to move out and made my first bad decision a few weeks after I moved out. Having been deprived of a healthy relationship for years, I was eager to show my boys what a healthy relationship was and began dating someone shortly after I moved out. Within a couple weeks I realized the mistake I was making and that I was allowing myself to put my own needs above theirs, so I concentrated hard on their well being. Trying to make my new home – an apartment less than a mile away – the best home I could make it. They loved being there, it was quiet, clean and there was no fighting. It was extremely hard for me though, as I spent the majority of my time alone and without them, after having been with them every day. After having been the one to make all their breakfasts every morning and pack all their lunches. Being the one to always drop them off at school since they were toddlers. I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest and many nights I lay alone in my bed, staring at the ceiling, tears in my eyes, yearning to hear a voice call me in the middle of the night “Dadda? I can’t sleep.”

My friends all told me it would get easier as time went on. I’d like to say that’s true, but it’s not. It’s a crock of shit. It never gets easier not being with your children. Parents aren’t meant to be away from their children. What kind of lasting impact can you have on a child that you don’t spend every day with?

But, time went on. I moved from the apartment to the lower level of a two family home and finally purchased the home that they have known as their first ‘real house’, not attached to anyone else’s house. Moving into this house, my girlfriend I had now been dating for a couple years moved in along with her two children from a previous marriage. Another bad choice. My children got along fine with hers but there was a monster lurking and I had no idea I had moved it into my home. The woman that had moved in was a closet alcoholic and within a couple months I realized how bad the situation was. She frequently drove home, picking up ‘nips’ (small bottles of spirits) on her way home, drinking them to ‘take off the edge’ of coming back to a house full of kids. By the time I asked her to leave a year later, she was drinking a fifth of fireball a night and the police were called frequently. I was becoming someone I never thought I could become. I had gone from being a very patient man, caring, loving – to  a man who was always angry and on edge, dreading evenings and praying that my children wouldn’t see the pain I was in or experience it themselves.

Children however are not blind and they see much more than we think. My youngest was elated when I asked the woman to leave. My oldest was relieved but he is very reserved and didn’t speak of it much, instead he twisted things in his head – he was trying to grapple with the divorce, the anger his own mother was apparently [inappropriately] confiding in him about and the stress of the alcoholic that had lived in our home. The environment had been toxic to all three of us and it would take another year before things began to feel normal again.

It was only recently, looking back through photos of the boys and I that I can truly see the pain and torment in our eyes that we were going through. It’s clear that there were constant attempts at happiness, traveling to back home to Ohio, going to water parks, going on long trips. However, one can see that there was always a dark cloud hanging over us throughout those years. I as a father, was uncertain what I could do to ease my children’s pain of the divorce and my tumultuous relationship because I was the one trapped within it all. It was like trying to protect someone from a tornado by wrapping yourself around them, just to find that both of you have been lifted up and carried away by the tornado. Now that the dust is settling, I’m slowly reestablishing the relationships I have with my children. They say that they don’t remember anything before I moved out, which I partially chock up to the trauma of it all. All I can do is keep moving forward and be the best father, the best man, that I can be.

Heaven and Hell
  • Jason Stadtlander

Heaven, Hell and Everything In Between (Part 1 of 2)
Heaven, Hell and Everything In Between (Part 1 of 2) 768 536 Jason Stadtlander

When I die, where will I go? 

I have asked myself this at least a million times. Not because I question the quality of my soul or the actions within this life, but because I question the very existence of constructs such as Heaven or Hell. Do I believe in a higher power? Yes. Do I believe that this higher power has a part in every nuance of our daily life? No. The greatest (and worst) gift we have been given is “free will”.

I just don’t think it’s practical… to give a creation free will and still have a part in controlling how that free will plays out. There is another part of me that questions the validity in judging the actions of that free will when no further actions can be taken.

For example; pretend that through our masterful DNA manipulation that we create creature called a Jathdizone. It’s a soft, furry creature with four long legs, long ears that are nearly as long as its legs, and it has a portly belly that hangs below it. We have given it intellect and have made it sentient (aware of its own existence). We place it upon the earth and tell the jathdizone to go forth and be fruitful and make lots of little jathdizones and create communities, etc. Now, each time a jathdizone dies, this consciousness, this awareness that we have given these beautiful creatures comes back to us. There is nothing more that the jathdizone can do to right any wrongs in its life. Perhaps it changed the world for its fellow jathdizonians… perhaps it murdered other jathdizones in a war. At this point – at the end of the journey, is it right for us to judge the actions of this creature and cast its consciousness into an abyss to exist for all eternity in darkness, aware of itself and existing in misery forever? Or does it make more sense to send that consciousness to the group existence of all the other jathdizones for them to teach it how to be good and true?

Is this a second chance? No. It is merely a step in our consciousness, a learning phase. Now, don’t get me wrong, pure evil does exist. We have seen it in our past and we will see it in our future. But, pure evil does not exist on its own without a catalyst or series of events leading up to it.

Let’s look at Hitler, just because I enjoy using him as an example. Here is someone who has not only devalued entire groups of people as ‘less than human’ and was responsible for the murder of countless people, he also is regarded as one of the most evil people in our past. However, I do not believe that he came to this ‘evil’ on his own. He came from a turbulent childhood, a very unhealthy relationship with his mother and was taught by others the nationalist perspectives. Did he from the day he was born contain the ultimate future of being capable of the atrocities he committed? No, I don’t believe so. I think that if he had a nurturing home, loving family and had been taught the TRUE right from wrong and taught to value people of all creeds, he may not have walked down the path he did.

In this statement, it is not the individual that should be punished but rather our species as a whole for allowing someone to slip through the cracks and not have the nurture they needed.

So, if Heaven and Hell exist in the literal sense, is it right for someone who has been raised poorly and influenced toward evil to be cast into the fire of Hell to spend eternity burning with no reprieve? In addition to this, what if someone has simply made several bad decisions in their life (God knows I have) but at their heart wants to do good for others and themselves? Further, what if someone wants to do good only for themselves but does good for others because they know it will benefit themselves – upholding their own selfishness through the good they are doing for others (we all know there are plenty of people out there like this). Will they go to Hell because it was their own interest that was paramount?

And, what if Heaven and Hell do not actually exist at all. Scientifically speaking, energy does not go away, it simply changes or transfers. So if the body dies and Heaven and Hell do not exist, where does the energy of our soul, our consciousness go when electrical activity ceases? Do we go to a group consciousness on a plane that we cannot perceive in this corporeal life?

I’ll let you know my own beliefs and thoughts on this in part 2.

Copyright © Jason Stadtlander - All Rights Reserved

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