Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
It sounds somewhat like a Hitchcock film — or, is that too archaic a reference these days? Is Hitchcock a film director whom nobody knows, anymore — another person who wasn’t? Or, more precisely, “Isn’t” but was? Is that the greatest fear of most people — the negation that erases, and why immortality and the existence of an afterlife is so important? […]
Can the precipice of elation last for long? What of contentment — a seemingly “lower-level” joy that pervades and remains for the duration of a season? Does evidence of its durability depend upon a smile frozen upon one’s face, or can it continue to establish its existence with gleaming eyes and a perpetual grin that seems never to go away? […]
Walking the dog out past dusk, or perhaps standing in the backyard after the sun sets; or, in an apartment complex looking out beyond; a light turns on in someone else’s home; we wonder, who is it, what are they like, and how different are they? Do others, upon seeing the light switched on in your home, wonder at the owner — the possessor of the finger that flicked the contraption that illuminated the room […]
It is a frightening word; for, it is what we all strive for, yet almost always fall short, fail or attempt to justify and obfuscate for not quite reaching that goal. Fortunately, there are at least two, but likely an infinite number of, avenues of avoidance in being charged with its lack: First, and fortunately, plagiarism is not a criminal offense and, moreover, no one really seems to care except in the most egregious of instances, and furthermore, for those professing to be constrained by Catholic orthodoxy, it isn’t even a venial sin, let alone a mortal one. […]
The etymology connotes the Biblical narrative found in Genesis, generally referred to as the Tower of Babel; in that case, not of words, but of civilizations attempting to reach the heavens in order to breach the power of the universe. But Babel was more than the diaspora of a rebellious cabal of God’s children gathered to defy and deface; it had to do with evil, impure intent, and the conspiracy of human depravity in the face of a pure heaven and the violation of man’s sacrosanct relationship implicit after the metaphor of the Great Flood. […]
Whether we have become meaner as a whole, or that people have always been so and we just never knew it, we shall never know. How does one contrast the incomparable? What algorithm would be applied, which quantitative analysis, and how would a qualitative methodology of content-purity be administered? Parity of differentiation would destroy any meaningful application; for, the generational divide would question the relevance of any prior criteria applied, and the subjectivity of inherent bias as to the meaning of innately elastic words would undermine the entire format. […]
Like garments left little for the imagination, the thin veil we wear rarely conceals the warts and freckles which spread throughout the malignancy of our souls. People often mistake and confuse Christendom’s barring of an impure taint from entering the gates of its exclusive club; it is not what you did, but that you did it, and refused to take the steps to expiate the uncleanliness. Thus, from the perspective unsoiled whiteness, a speck will blemish whether the dimensions of the spot are quantifiable or not. That is why we dress ourselves with something, or anything, thinking that behind the veil — despite its translucent and revelatory insubstantiality […]
The bifurcation between public and private issues has been blurred to such an extent that the social norms which once prevailed no longer apply. Public figures constantly complain about the intrusion of unwanted exposure, and yet they generate and welcome their wealth precisely by means of voluntarily submitting to such magnified scrutiny. Notoriety in modernity results in the accumulation of a fattened checkbook; protestations aside, it is hollow hypocrisy indeed to claim violation of trespass. […]