Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Few of us want to think of ourselves as past that point. For, the “apex” is the top of it all; it is the place which is reached, and then there follows a downward trajectory such that what had been reached cannot be repeated; and from there forward, there are only memories, regrets, and echoes of past glories stated in hollow monotones that betray and failures of lives lived. […]
Perception is one thing; reality is quite another. Plato’s entire compendium of works can be reduced to the essence of that thought: The worth of life’s goal is to embrace pure Being, the reality that surrounds, and to distinguish between appearance and truth; the allegory of the Cave; the arguments with Thrasymachus; the diatribes against the poets — the latter, because they distort perception and create myths by which people live for and believe in. […]
We hear about the various approaches — of “quantitative analysis”; of systems created for a specific outcome-based determination; of numeric, qualitative, cost-benefits balancing, etc.; and all the while, we presume that there is a “methodological” underpinning that girds the analytical viewpoint, thereby systematizing the approach into a coherent consistency in order to limit and restrict human error. […]
We are told from a very early age that we must have one; like winds that carry seasonal warmth and jet streams that bring unseasonable temperatures, we are ingrained to be purposive, teleological and focused upon the goal in mind. Wisdom-filled proverbs echo beyond the history […]
One rarely thinks in terms of multiple stomachs, but certainly cows have them; but when we consider the tripe of language, we project only the inherent foolishness of man. Of tropes, we may envision a higher calling; though, of course, figurative speech requires greater imagination and creativity, and the dullness of many falls back naturally into either the first or second stomachs of the bovine kind, and not merely to be digested and emitted through the natural canals of intestinal tracts, but by metaphorical heights of human depravity. Then, of course, there are trivialities, and most of the drip-drip-drip sort, and never in voluminous waves of profundities, […]
If a criterion is advanced at the outset, one expects that the details of its applicability will result in a fair outcome so long as the requisite subsets are adhered to. The problem is one of generalizations, however, and the linguistic malleability of hermeneutic interpretation, and in the end, the honesty of the individual. There may have been a time when the sin nature of man was contained, and Pandora’s box was sealed, or at least somewhat secured; but once relativism creeped into the general populace, the game of restraint was lost forever. […]
The bet must be precise. Thus, it needs to be based upon extensive research, a knowledge of each of the elements, the circumstances surrounding the process; the quality of the expected environment; whether intersecting conditions will interrupt or influence; what other unforeseen confluence of intercessions may develop. The finishers must be predicted in sequential order. The trifecta is therefore a management of time, knowledge, expertise and sprinkled with a bit of luck extracted from the cauldron of a witch’s brew. […]