Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Among the various species, are we the only ones who engage in reenactments? Isn’t living life itself enough? Do we really have to live it all over again, except in a “reality-based” methodology of reenacting what once was? What does it say about a species which attempts to recreate scenes, scenarios and historically arcane contexts; or even of the lonely teenager who revisits the place of his or her first love, […]
At what point do we describe a dream as merely a dream, and not a nightmare, and does the contrast between the two as set in comparative standing against one’s daily reality change the equation at all? Are some people more able to tolerate greater tumult of images ensconced within the framework of the “inner eye” that receives the moving reels of dreams, nightmares and memories? Is there a connection between reality and dreams, reality and nightmares, and dreams and nightmares? […]
When did it happen? Certainly, by the time E.E. Cummings came upon the scene, with his oddity of typographical stream of consciousness, the acceptance of it had already come to fruition; or, perhaps it was in the translation of foreign such vehicles of linguistic amalgamations – when the first frustrated translator threw up his hands in disgust at a Japanese Haiku or a German verse of too numerous a compendium of throat-clearing consonants, that the advent of the rhymeless poem reached its fulfillment and pinnacle of public acceptance. Or, maybe we just ran out of words. […]
There are countless titles of books which predicate upon the presumptuous endeavor; palm readers who, for a prepaid fee, make their living from it; and wanderers who trek the Himalayas in search of it. Others merely change the definition or meaning of what constitutes the achieved goal, or drink themselves silly when self-deception fails to fulfill. The problem with happiness is that it was once a byproduct of our lives; when it became the end-goal, the very nature and essence of it became unachievable. […]
We like to think that our lives progress unencumbered in a linear line of advancement, with nary a bump or an obstacle unconquerable, and but for the occasional exuberance of planned erraticisms, the journey should be a smooth ride without surprises. But just as planes sometimes fall from the sky, and nature betrays its perfection by mistaken errors of comedic turmoil, so the linear aspect of constancy often must confront the bumpiness of expectations. Life rarely turns out as planned, and the more we plan, the less we expect fulfillment. […]
Human beings have the unlimited capacity of projecting into the future, such that a present picture of what may occur some time hence can be visualized; but whether and how many bring the future to the fore, such that the present becomes encompassed into the reflective reality of current circumstances, is of an imaginative rendering few take the time to engage in. By focusing upon the future as some ethereal fog somewhere in the distant netherworlds, we can justify the tendency to procrastinate and kick the proverbial can down the road; […]