Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
It cannot be by counting wrinkles, or the number of gray hairs; for, some people never develop them, and in any event, new methodologies of plastic surgery, hair dyes and other cosmetic creativities can easily override such superficial eruptions of telltale signs. Photographs can no longer be evidence of aging, for airbrushing and digital modifications can dispense with such irritating characteristics. […]
If you ascribe something to everything, then nothingness results. For, to declare that all of X is contained in Y is to delete X into irrelevancy, and leave Y with nothing but X, thereby subsuming everything with nothing. Thus, when we argue for a form of pantheism, the language of “all” tends to diminish the uniqueness of singularity, and the meanings of distinction and difference. […]
It is, of course, the foundation of Kant’s moral philosophy; of the unconditional call to act in a certain way, accepted and mandated precisely because there is no room for question. But that life were so easy; automatons would simply act in mechanistic ways, driven by moral certitude; free will could be determined by the comforting thought that universal codes of conduct shall always confine and direct. And bureaucracies would always make decisions within a framework of computational algorithms. […]
There is often a widespread misconception that “facts” need no elucidation or explanation, and somehow speak for themselves. There are, indeed, times when self-imposed limitation of apparent eloquence and bombastic, grandiloquent and pretentious verbosity is of use; for, scarcity of adjectives and brevity of prose can leave the plains and tundra of a descriptive narrative’s call for less inhabitants, and not more, to reveal the beauty of the linguistic landscape; but even in such instances, facts still require explanation. […]
In the calm of morning darkness, when the stillness of winter whispers a hushed tone of quietude just before the first break of dawn, one’s perspective falls askew amidst the shadows and desolation of winter. Is that a rock or a dead bird, frozen in the stillness of winter’s despair? Was the movement behind the trees a reflection, or just the first faintness of dawn’s exposure? Perspectives are funny glazes; a once familiar landscape can be frighteningly unfamiliar within the dark chasms of one’s own mind. […]
It is through ascription from third parties, over extended time periods, where the development of self-identity takes root, through subtle, incremental ways, until one day, unnoticed, without fanfare and unheralded, it becomes a known quantity of acceptance within one’s social circles, professional associations and the greater macrocosmic world we encounter. The day or the time can never be pinpointed; having a name plate designed and placed upon one’s desk does not provide it; and calling yourself repetitively the title or nomenclature doesn’t quite satisfy the requirements of the sought after. That is the anomaly; […]
It is perhaps best that anticipatory planning, based upon predictive analytics, is an afterthought for human intuition and predilection of priorities in life. Otherwise, one can remain in a world of obsessive preventative maintenance of efforts, and never accomplish what needs to be done today. Future forebodings aside, and whether an individual engages in hazardous duties which exponentially increase the statistical curve for the onset of an occupational disease or injury, or the development of a medical condition through repetitive and overuse of a particular appendage […]