Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
What is it about the ascription of such a word, that there can be a direct correlation or, if taken in a different context, some mere connection but no causality? We can say of a person, “He is responsible for X”, and yet never have directly encountered X or (if a person) never even have met X. Thus of monsters and thugs throughout history, for instance, we might say that “Stalin was responsible for 20 million deaths, […]
The parenthetical insertion creates a “real-time” interlude, and the addendum of the grammatical mandate, the unnecessary comma, extends the strained quietude of wanting to engage the sequential utterance. There is the reality of “now”, which we occupy, fill and exist within, […]
Can a footman in former times, or a scullery maid while scrubbing the floors, experience envy when class structures forbade any hope of advancing beyond? In days before of rigid demarcations of social and class differentiations, where terms in modernity like “upward mobility” or “moving up the ladder” (have you ever wondered at the condescending connotation of such terms, where “up” is the direction of the movement, as if one were ascending to the heavens, even when such barometric activity often corresponded to moral degradation and sacrifice of one’s character?) were unheard of, […]
Life is a mystery, and individual lives a puzzle untold. It is the calluses that we develop throughout our lives that diminish our individual and collective curiosity to get to know the “other”. We are born with a teleological intellect striving to unravel and unmask the depths of human essence; but modernity, technology and the singular focus of tangents often involving prurient asides distract and envelop with unwavering obsessions, but it has gotten worse: no, not in any violent manner or upheaval of historical significance; rather, the electronic means of texting, emailing, Facebook-ing and other such means […]
Each of us has one, but we know not what it states; for, it is what is written and carried by someone else, and not from ourselves. Yes, yes, we also have an “autobiography”, as well – a narrative of how we see ourselves, in what manner, of what form, in what scintillating and scandalous light. But it is the collective viewpoints of all whom we have encountered that comprise, constitute and in the compendium of the aggregate, tell the story of “that person” – you. […]
Like the letter expressing undying love, returned without a forwarding address and stamped with a vengeance with ink smudges unable to erase. Of course, such imagery is likely to be a puzzle and an unknown quantity for most, as no one writes letters, anymore. What would be its modern equivalent? An email returned, a text message ignored, or a Facebook request blocked? Loyalties, on the other hand, are a funny thing; if left unspoken and implicitly assumed, each party to the “agreement” of loyalty can walk about with differing perspectives and alternative understandings. […]
Why are some better at preemptively addressing recognizable foreshadowing? Is it a genetic predisposition related to the capacity of surviving? Like the instinctive responses of animals, is it an inherent trait that favors those who are more “fit” with such a characteristic, and thus to the disadvantage of those who do not possess it, […]
How do we come to learn how to do it? Certainly, we come across certain eccentric individuals who defy every conventional norm, and somehow manage to appear as if they have done what otherwise we recognize as not having been completed. Have you ever come across someone who just isn’t “quite right” – such that, when you ask a question, the tangents that flood forth and the meandering thought processes make it an arbitrary conclusion as to whether it was the specific question asked that prompted the incommensurate response, or just the mere fact of a tonal posit of a question-like query that compelled a verbal reaction, even if it has nothing to do with the substance of the question itself? […]