Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
The oxymoron of the objective world; yes, it can perhaps be maintained in the virtual reality of cognitive dissonance, but the human body warns and tells all. The basic problem is that while the “mind” retains an image of frozen time, the body continues upon the progressive course of constancy in deterioration. […]
There are certain phrases that turn one’s attention, and daydreams of exotic lands and foreign places become projected onto one’s imagination, like camels, Arabian nights and sand dunes in faraway corners. But, then, reality imposes itself; such places probably exist a few miles hence; those distant lands are now war-torn and deemed by the State Department to be forbidden avenues for sightseers and tourists in cut-off shorts and Hawaiian Shirts (did you know that the latter are apparently “back in style” – as if they ever were?), with warnings and cautionary predictions where officialdom has already evacuated the premises. […]
Garbage in, garbage out; leave the door wide open, and the flies come in; “we don’t live in a barn”; and other similar quips, quotes and quotidian truths abound to guide us throughout the day. In Medieval times, the Gatekeeper held a prominent position of authority and safekeeping; trust was of paramount importance, and the potential for bribery to undermine loyalty and fealty to the inhabitants of the Court or Castle meant that treatment of the assigned individual demanded respect as well as adequate renumeration. […]
In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important not to confuse the difference between that which is central in proving one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, from that which is merely of persuasive import. In some cases, there may be a necessity, for very pragmatic reasons, to deliberately switch the two; but as a general rule, the argument for persuasive documentation should be used as secondary sources of proof. […]
It is the crisis point of one’s life, and the interruption of plans, which seems to define the value of the narrative. We tend to judge by leaps of negation; in a hurry to determine worth, we skim the beginning chapters, then rush through the middle, and read with intensive interest the last few pages and conclude the life of a character based not upon the lengthy experiences of amoral devices, but by the standards of terminal avalanches. A short story is merely a slice of life; a novel, a jagged graph of extrapolated instances cumulatively garnered to present a coherent and systematized itinerary. […]
Aristotle refers to the underlying unchangeableness of the world we encounter, in contrast to the cosmetic alterations which appear to defy the constancy of the universe, thereby bringing together the two poles of philosophical opposition as represented by Heraclitus and Parmenides. That “substratum” which underlies it all, and of which Heidegger sought to unravel and make known; for the everyday person, it is the “stuff of life” that we must deal with. […]
Concurrent litigation entanglements occur often enough; if one has the capacity and ability to compartmentalize life, such multi-adversarial offensives can be effectively coordinated. At the same time, however, it is important to recognize the folly of spreading oneself too thin; history confirms the defeats suffered at the principle of too much, too soon, as in Germany’s incursion on the Eastern Front while taking on North Africa and the entrance of the United States into a reluctant war. […]
It is that loss of innocence; of a childhood cut and let go, a bifurcation of sorts, where the fluttering tail fades into the misty distance of time past, eternity unfulfilled, and the present moment shattered by a loss not valued by economic standards, but by the negation of that which was, will never be again, and won’t be coming back. The loss of anything is valued by the attachment of human passion, the trembling fear of future consequences known and yet to be determined, and the expectation of a hope left as a residue of hard work and toil. […]
The phrase itself is borrowed from Roger Scruton, who is perhaps one of the most influential philosopher of recent times. To be “influential” is perhaps problematic, for if the general public denies knowledge of an individual, to what degree can influence be determined? Public figures — known entertainers, authors of general fiction, news anchors and talk show hosts — are considered societal giants whose comments on culture, trends, values and norms demand attention and guru-like following. But philosophers tend to be relegated to academic ivory towers of irrelevance. […]