Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Dissimilarity is what threatens us; similarity — the notion that there are shared, common characteristics between you and I — provides for an acceptable level of comfort and security. When we learn about the lives of the “rich and famous”, […]
As to the familiar saying — of “knowing one’s self” — what can it possibly mean? The saying, “Know thyself”, was inscribed on various temples in Ancient Egypt and was known to be one of the Delphic maxims. Socrates, of course, taught a variation of the statement, contending that the “unexamined life is not worth living” […]
Does purpose always guide? Or do we sometimes work on automatic pilot — without thought, working our way through a morass of repetition merely because that is the way we have always done things and it is more comfortable to continue on that same path? What does it mean to live without a purpose, or even to live with one? Are we more motivated; […]
It is the question itself which is often “telling”; it informs us of where the line of answering and posited queries is likely to take us. It is like the map that guides in a certain direction, the compass that informs one of the vantage point of one’s existence or the gravitational pull which pulls in order to remain cohesive with other heavenly bodies; the question itself may not even need an answer. […]
We take extraordinary steps just to visit them; of the Parthenon, the Athenian Acropolis; of the Great Wall of China; of unspeaking relics where life once bustled, and still does but in a different way; of mere onlookers to a civilization once vibrant, but now twice removed — first, in the incremental abandonment of a society no longer relevant, and second, by the implicit concession that tourism establishes the death of the substantive content of any collection of structures. Or of Aleppo, where modern-day devastation intersects with the ruins of old, and where actual suffering echoes throughout the ancient cascades where antiquity overwhelms the current screams of flesh and blood. […]
As applied to a person, the dual concepts refer to the capacity of the individual’s talent and the relational importance to the greater needs of an organization, entity or society; as inserted in a more general sense, it is an evaluation of the connection between import and applicability. […]
It is the complexity of the absurd which tends to amaze; whether, in this day and age, we have lost the subtlety of the ludicrous, is sometimes to be held with awe. Shakespeare’s Court jesters, clowns and fools all had that capacity to meander with linguistic pointedness; and it was in the very contrast between a character taking absurdity too seriously, and the juxtaposition of seriously expressing the absurd, that truth of circumstances often emerge. […]
Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, recognized the influence of movies, and the media in general. When used as a tool for political purposes, they mold and direct the issues to be discussed, the pathways of thoughts to be taken, and the passions to be experienced. Though we think we are libertarians within the secluded confines of our own minds, what actually occurs is that we fail to recognize the subtle influences of those forces which we rely upon so much for our daily focus and guidance. […]