Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
We live mostly on automatic pilot; whether by insidious lack of awareness or some evolutionary mechanism that blocks out and limits the stimuli that bombards, so much of life is lived as a routine — without thought or even consciousness (do we equate the two or recognize the distinction?), but like the automaton working deliberatively in jerking movements of mechanized stridency, […]
It is the symbol of a quieter life; of a pastoral time of past remembrances, where the slower pace accorded a tranquility now lost forever. It is referred to in many of William Trevor’s short stories — of that time in England when people still sat around and had “that cup of tea”. For, somehow, the notion of fine china, the curling wisps of winding steam and the aroma of warmth and comfort retain a resonance of civility, quietude and the sentiment of calmer times. […]
There is a process and means by which it is accomplished — as in authenticating a painting or an antique piece of furniture, jewelry, etc.; of an autograph or handwritten letter (although, many will say that in the field of forensic sciences, handwritten analysis is far from reaching a vaunted level of precision or reliability); of a pet’s pedigree or even of a person’s right to have access to sensitive information, etc. Authentication is thus a process of verification, of identifying X as being Not-Y in many instances, […]
How important is accuracy? The converse of such a query, of course, is: Is inaccuracy significant? One would immediately posit: It all depends. Take the following 2 hypotheticals: An archeological dig is conducted, and it is believed that the site of the ruins is of relevant importance concerning a time-period of “recent” history — say, during the American Revolution. […]
It is the negation of that very concept which we fear; not of loyalty, but of disloyalty. The positive of it is what we are taught to abide by; of “honesty”, “integrity”, “faithfulness”, “reliability”, and so many other such reputation-bearing ascriptions that one may carry about within the essence of one’s being, like so many medals pinned upon the flesh and blood that constitutes the entirety of a human being, […]
The signature is the great identifier of a person. It is, in some countries and cultures more than others, and even here in the United States, a feature that distinguishes, a type of rite of passage into adulthood, and in many ways a revealing characteristic. It allows for the voluntary identification of a feature emanating from one’s own free will; an act which seals a compact; […]
There are primary characters, ancillary or peripheral personalities – and just another bystander. Similarly, in personal relationships taken from a subjective “I” viewpoint, there are “close family members” (i.e., normally identified as the core within a nuclear family), “extended family”, and then there are “friends and acquaintances” — and just pure strangers. […]
Goals define an aspect of humanity that differentiates from the beast; just look at nature and the existential encounter with the “now” at all times. Animals besides Man look at the world around and respond appropriately and accordingly. For them, the future is the now; the past is merely a basis upon which to react in this moment of time; and what the appetitive parts of the soul require, the predator attempts to satisfy. Goals, on the other hand, project into the future. […]
The first in the series connotes bonding; the second, the state of being; and the third in the tripartite application of this linguistic artifice, the conclusion to a life lived. Camus and Sartre represent the despair and loss of innocence – of a melancholy realization in the disillusionment of life’s aggregate experience – born in the early days of existentialism which uttered its first breath of strangulated gasps in the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War, only to be reinforced with experiential encounters of greater dehumanization during the Second World War; […]
The first in the series connotes bonding; the second, the state of being; and the third in the tripartite application of this linguistic artifice, the conclusion to a life lived. Camus and Sartre represent the despair and loss of innocence – of a melancholy realization in the disillusionment of life’s aggregate experience – born in the early days of existentialism which uttered its first breath of strangulated gasps in the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War, only to be reinforced with experiential encounters of greater dehumanization during the Second World War; […]