Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
We often hear the expression, “My head is about to explode.” What can it mean? Clearly, it is not to be taken literally — although, there are circumstances where brain aneurisms can result in the sensation described and an immediate trip to the emergency room would be indicated. Figuratively, it normally means that the pressures and stresses of the world are too much to bear, […]
There are people who speak volumes in voluminous volubility, but of thinness of content and lacking of much substance. Then, there is that quiet person in the corner, perhaps distracted by someone’s glancing comment or lost in his own thoughts who, when asked about a topic of general interest to all in a group, articulates in a single sentence what others have attempted to encapsulate in a paragraph, a page, or perhaps a Dickensian novel. […]
Why “straight” as opposed to curved or in a zig-zag manner? Who first thought that it was preferable, desirable, and even “smarter” to “think straight” as opposed to a thought process which involves a greater complexity of circuitous routes? Is the origin based upon a metaphor or an analogy — that, because the shortest distance from Point A to Destination B must by geometric necessity involve a straight line, […]
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; […]
Whether used as a noun or a verb, the second grammatical appendage can have multiple meanings: as a stick of lumber; as an activity placing information, warning, directional declarative or similar linguistic affirmations; and the combination of the two words can be read only within a greater contextual enlightenment depending upon what meaning is meant to be conveyed or how the inflection and accent is emphasized. […]
We wake up each morning expecting the world to have remained unaltered during the night; yet, as Hume’s argument concerning causality would have us believe, there is no necessary connection we have identified or conceptually ascertained, but merely our imagination anticipating and projecting into the future, such that stability of the universe around us pervades in a constancy of regularity. The surroundings remain familiar; the coffee machine is of the same make as when we left it the night before; even the dogs appear unchanged, ready to obey and begin the day in the fashion that canines are accustomed to. […]
Every writer dreads the process; on the other side of the proverbial fence, it is the joyful perverseness of the editor, with markers in hand and metaphorical scissors and knives to slash and cut, the necessity of reducing and whittling away the creative volume of words forming descriptive paragraphs and the infancy of a birth of genius, or so one always thinks about one’s own work. Everyone has a story to tell. How cogent; whether systematic in logical sequence; the relevance of certain statements, sentences, and sometimes paragraphs and chapters, may undermine the greater purpose for which something is written.[…]
Stockings and watercolors do it; time, with quietude and solace of a steady march, moving with predictable sequence like the consistency of a drumbeat; and, of course, the rhythm reminiscent of cardiac health, as do joggers and concerned citizens chasing down a purse snatcher to retrieve a possession of identity. And life, too. Sometimes, there is a good “run” of something — a lengthy period of calm and productivity, where all of the pistons of a complex and interactive mechanism akin to a turbo engine […]
The aged bemoan of modernity; youth view the present as merely fodder for change and future potential; and caught in between, somewhere in the netherworld of inertia, those inconsequential individuals relegated to the irrelevant category of “middle age”, who must stand by and witness the slow and progressive destruction of the past, the deterioration of cohesiveness of the future, and the present infirmity of impotence. […]
Originating from mathematics, the concept of extrapolation works well within numerical or statistical restrictions, because the inherent precision constrained by present trends versus application to unknown quantities, poses a self-correcting device not otherwise discovered with linguistic flexibility. But what of a person’s life? Most descriptions possess mere “slice of life” indicators. An employment application; information gathered on a background check; security clearances obtained; personal financial statements; a family discussion about an incident which involved a relative; these are all moments in time, partial reflections upon a wider context of a complex life. […]