Federal Disability Retirement: The language divide

Why is it that language is often so far removed from the living of life?  Was Wittgenstein correct – that it is a distinct world, separate and apart, that really has nothing to do with the “reality” of an “objective” universe?  Was Russell’s cutting quips about the bald King of France a way to point out that the primitive outlook of the traditional correspondence theory of language – that words, concepts, etc. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: As life passes by

It seems to come and go imperceptibly; we barely notice; then, one day, we wake up and life has passed by; the past is now an elongated prism through which we judge the remainder of our lives; the present is but the despair we feel because of wasted time allowed to blur beyond into a vestige of forgotten winds; […] Read More …

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Government: Berkeley’s House

He was an Irishman, and if one were to “rank” philosophers, he would likely be considered a “second tier” thinker — not quite at the level of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Heidegger — but certainly contributed to the Western Philosophical tradition of engendering even greater questions than solving any problems or settling any queries. A little tidbit which is not commonly known: Bishop Berkeley came to the United States and purchased a plantation at Middletown, intending upon living there, until his expectation of funding failed to be forthcoming. […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement Benefits: Book Review

Generally, this blog does not review books; however, exceptional works may prompt exceptions to the general order of things, where relevance of subject and beauty of personality may coalesce to consider a slight change of venue. The work itself will neither become a masterpiece nor a conversation focus beyond a generation or two, as the world it describes is quickly fading into the sunset of eccentricity and scarcity of understanding. Tim Sultan’s book (and from the jacket cover, it appears to be his first one at that), Sunny’s Nights, is a mixture of reportage, love of character and annotation of provincial myth. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The touch of life

People often refer to “the touch”; of Midas’ ability to engage in alchemy, now transformed into a metaphor for those whose every endeavor results in financial gain; or of that “soft touch” in the arena of basketball, where the swish of the net and the easy bounce which finds the diameter of the hoop always larger than the irascible target of our trying attempts. But it is the “touch of life” which encompasses all of that, and more. When most struggle with the morning fog of first dawn, and youth craves for the security of childhood but act with cynicism to protect their own pride; and pride itself, foolish in its heart, […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement under: Duplicative Duplicity

We can lie to others; others can deceive us; one can persuade oneself of a falsehood in order to live a deception; and we may even be able to persuade others, despite knowing the truth, to tell a lie and come to believe it in order to create an atmosphere of believability for third parties to concede. The capacity for human nature to construct walls of deception, and double-walls of duplicity, is fathomless and without competition. Everywhere else in the animal kingdom, the stark reality of the innate essence for survival prompts and compels in order to meet the day’s needs and arrive at the horizon’s end so as to lay one’s head upon a pillow of restive sleep; but not for man. […] Read More …

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Excision & Expiation

Sometimes, the former must be engaged in order to save the whole, lest the lesser segment spreads to infect the greater; while in different circumstances, of contexts involving spiritual offenses, the latter may suffice through acceptable acts of contrition or penance paid through rote words of sincere atonements. In other instances, the act of the latter may account for the former, while the satisfaction through the former may be sufficient to complete the latter. Excision is to surgically sever and remove, and then to discard and alienate from the body of which it was once a part; while expiation is to similarly remove, but which can still remain as a part of one’s history of misdeeds. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Adaptable Criterion

If a criterion is advanced at the outset, one expects that the details of its applicability will result in a fair outcome so long as the requisite subsets are adhered to. The problem is one of generalizations, however, and the linguistic malleability of hermeneutic interpretation, and in the end, the honesty of the individual. There may have been a time when the sin nature of man was contained, and Pandora’s box was sealed, or at least somewhat secured; but once relativism creeped into the general populace, the game of restraint was lost forever. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Medical conditions and the “to-do” List

We often approach everything in life in a repetitive, systematic manner; of a routine which engenders habituation of comfort, and of identity harkening to obsession of similitude.  It is said of Kant that his neighbors set and corrected their watches and clocks according to the regularity of his walks,  […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The Generational Transfer of Wisdom

If wisdom is the collective knowledge, information and experience of a culture, then the loss, refusal or rejection of such historical amassing of purposive accrual of cognitive aggregation would result in the disintegration of a cohesive identity. Foolishness can therefore be defined as the state of reinventing the wheel at every turn, merely because of a stubborn refusal to listen and learn. And that is precisely the current state of modernity; youth portends to pretentiousness; all of knowledge is discovered only today, and the older generation knows not the profundities of present-day philosophers who tweet daily gems of lifestyle advisories and post declarative idleness of incomprehensible vacuities. […] Read More …