Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
We hear about that — of people dying while in the process of trying to work. We push ourselves daily because we have no choice but to bear the unbearable, as if the work we do is more important than life itself. We give lip-service to so much pablum — that “life is sacred”; that we live in a “caring society”; that “in the end”, what matters are “relationships” and not material possessions, etc. […]
The two go hand in hand. That, in and of itself — of “going hand in hand” — is a peculiar metaphor; for, like couples holding hands while taking a walk in the proverbial park, do hands necessarily have to be held in order for comity to be established? Can a person, for example, have proof without knowledge or, conversely, knowledge without proof? […]
It is the legal standard by which civil (non-criminal) adjudications are based upon, and whether or not it can be rationally demarcated as against other standards – i.e., “Clear and convincing evidence” or “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt” is a question for legal theorists and the schools rendered under the general aegis of, “The Philosophy of Law” – is a valid question in and of itself. For, we can dress prettily and puff up the definition of what it all means, and bifurcate and explain how the three standards are distinct […]
Expectation constitutes the anticipatory goal to be attained sometime in the near or far future; reality is the actualization of the potentiality of one’s imagination. That anticipatory potentiality, however, can be formulated based upon numerous factors, including: baseless imagination (more of a child-like quality); desire and hope (with perhaps some admixture of factual context and content, and somewhat of a more mature basis); or sequences of planned actions culminating in a realistic fulfillment based upon actual circumstances analyzed, […]
Preparing for life’s vicissitudes can be a daunting task. Some never acquire the skills necessary to accommodate the winds of misdirection; others stumble through like a drunken sailor walking down fate’s gangplank, seeing the end but failing to adapt in time to prevent the calamities forewarned. The very few somehow manage to engage the transformation, like a chameleon who responds to the surrounding environment by becoming invisible within the subtleties of life. […]
We persuade ourselves that only children play those games; of turning suddenly left, instead of right; of pretending to be asleep, only to unexpectedly open one’s eyes to test the reality of our surroundings; and other discordant acts in an effort to defy the predetermination of fate, as if the karmic principles governing the universe are subject to the vicissitudes of private thoughts. But the anomaly of the unexpected is that, once a pattern of disjointed behavior itself becomes a monotony of the routine, the corridors of ritualistic behavior become entrenched and often prevents one from taking steps necessary […]
Pyrite is often the element mistaken for gold, with its bright yellow appearance and shiny, reflective compound. Why a given mineral is determined of greater value than another of similar appearance is a complicated affair, encapsulating economic principles of supply and demand, the fungibility and replacement feature of one over the other, and the plain fact that the elemental differentiation itself constitutes “real” versus “fake”. It is, in history books, novels and plays, a metaphor for greed, corruption, ill-fated endeavors, and motives which propel obsessions of determined failure and futility. […]