Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
We look upon with sadness that which once was, and remorsefully retro-fit what could have been despite that which never was meant to be. The promising beginning is the one that originated with fullness of hope and expectations; then, there is a “middle ground” — a point where paths diverge and perhaps the critical juncture where success, failure, or something in-between presents itself; […]
When you walk into a room full of people, how does one differentiate, define, separate and discern? Remember that once-popular fictional work entitled, Tarzan of the Apes by (originally) Edgar Rice Burroughs? There is a scene (whether from one of the various versions depicted on screen) where young Tarzan […]
The rabbits we chase are the ones that reveal not so much about our preferences, but more about who we are and the priorities we place. For, as one walks about in life, whether in suburban neighborhoods where rabbits abound because no one shoots them for meals, anymore, and so they can multiply without natural restrictions for lack of predators, the fact that there are other things to pursue […]
It does appear never-ending, doesn’t it? And what of that dream – of some windfall, or perhaps the lottery pick of numbers that somehow keeps people coming back to the corner Mart and purchasing tickets despite the astronomical chances that defy the odds of probability? Why is it that people are more apt to believe in conspiracy theories that the moon landing or aliens from Mars have been concocted and coopted by some nefarious government, […]
They are opposites, and yet they can confer meaning and communicate conceptual clarity by the very usage of simultaneous reflection in conjoined placement within a singular sentence of repose. Can silence be of such tumultuous unnerving, and a confusion of loud noises be characterized within the context of its opposite, and still retain a clear sense of meaning? Would it make the similar, mirror-image sense if we transposed and flipped those same words, and instead spoke about the “silence of din”? […]
Karl Popper’s division of the world into three clean segments of definable universes was, on the one hand, quite controversial — especially as the esoteric world of philosophy had been steadily ‘progressing‘ towards pure materialism and scientism; and yet, on the other, self-evident to almost a simplistic, tautological fault. Perhaps that is the very implication of profundity: it is that which appears so basic and elementary as to presuppose idiocy, but containing such inherent complexity as to remain beyond the reach of most. […]
Why is it that the common denominator is always represented by the basest of related factors? The answer is simple, of course, and a tautology of sorts; for, that which is uncommon, by definition, constitutes a rare and prized feature, and through sheer economic application of supply and demand, the latter is heightened when the former is scarce. Thus, in issues of character and human essences, the core of an individual is represented by the base elements of evolutionary Darwinism, and would therefore constitute the most simplistic of instinctive drives; whereas culture, refinement and societal structures are developed beyond the commonality of base factors. […]
Existentialism could only have arisen from the ashes of nihilism; Western Philosophy, spanning the spectrum of metaphysics, epistemology, Rationalism, Empiricism and the tradition of questioning origins, essences and the compendium of who we are and what it all means, does not lead to the natural annihilation of intellectual curiosity. But Existentialism, does. Why? Because Existentialism is an emotional reaction, rather than a rational rebuttal. From the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the denigration of human dignity reduced to mere abstractions, the philosophy of negation of which it is characterized, […]