Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
The choices we make are contingent upon the knowledge we possess; thus, if we choose between a tripartite offering of x, y & z, when (as perhaps illustrated by Venn Diagrams within a rectangular border representing the “universal” set of possibilities) actual and available options may extend beyond the known quantities available, […]
We can lie to others; others can deceive us; one can persuade oneself of a falsehood in order to live a deception; and we may even be able to persuade others, despite knowing the truth, to tell a lie and come to believe it in order to create an atmosphere of believability for third parties to concede. The capacity for human nature to construct walls of deception, and double-walls of duplicity, is fathomless and without competition. Everywhere else in the animal kingdom, the stark reality of the innate essence for survival prompts and compels in order to meet the day’s needs and arrive at the horizon’s end so as to lay one’s head upon a pillow of restive sleep; but not for man. […]
It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical. It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them. The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition. […]
It is a word past its prime; one which was prevalent and pervasive in use during this author’s childhood, and represented a more refined way of saying, “guts” or “courage”. It is one which brought forth a seeming awe and sense of credibility to the person who uttered the words, and once stated, it spread like wildfire amongst the pseudo-intellectuals and wanna-be William-F-Buckley-Jrs of the world. Of course, no one could effortlessly drop a line of Latin like he could, and just as the death of an icon can fade the philosophical context of a given epoch, so words can lose their efficacy from generational transfer to the next; yet, […]
We all have to make them; and though we may alternatively want to curl up into a fetal position and wish the blunt world to stop bothering us, the decisions we make, and take responsibility for, reflect the state of maturity which binds us to age, experience and level of moral maturity. It is, to a great extent, a superficial and shallow connotation and reference point; for, as the inevitability of choices to be made result from living in circumstances of our own making, so to imply that there is anything “substantive” in speaking about them undermines the very relevance of implication itself. […]
The tipping point where negation of living constitutes greater time spent than affirmative enjoyment of the activity engaged, is determined by individual choices and preferences. Some individuals retain a higher threshold for pain, discomfort, and capacity to endure; and the fact that an MRI reveals a degenerative or decaying physical attribute does not necessarily correlate with the capability to ignore or otherwise minimize the magnitude of pain. […]
There is that moment of haziness, where sleep has not yet overtaken and consciousness has not yet been fully lost, where the philosophical abyss of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or stands in relation to knowledge, truth, insight and puzzlement, and where questions abound concerning the relationship between words and the objective reality of constellations clashing amidst bursting stars and black holes. Sleep is a realm sought after; restorative sleep, a state of being which, without explanation or cause, we accept as a necessity of life’s conundrums. […]
If wisdom is the collective knowledge, information and experience of a culture, then the loss, refusal or rejection of such historical amassing of purposive accrual of cognitive aggregation would result in the disintegration of a cohesive identity. Foolishness can therefore be defined as the state of reinventing the wheel at every turn, […]
Seasons bring out certain characteristics and traits of primate natures; and while artificial lighting, civilized constructs of community comforts and technological distractions of virtual reality may somewhat temper the appetitive rhythms of inherent evolutionary origins, the fact is that our attempts to suspend the reality […]
Word associations are revealing. When once a word is uttered, the immediate association of another concept provides a prelude to the cognitive perspective of an individual. Conceptual relationships are forged through upbringing, personal experiences, and memories fulfilled through impact, trauma, significance of meaning, and attribution of value. The thinking “I” within the subjective realm of a personal universe, is made up of ghosts of the past, goblins of present fears, and gadflies yet to swarm. […]