OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Asylum

As an active noun, it can mean the protection accorded to a migrant seeking refuge and escape from persecution; in a passive sense, it is an institution with a historical connotation of ill-treatment and mistreatment, imposed against the will of another who may be unable to care for oneself. In either implied denotations, it reflects a protective refuge, either against the outside forces by within, or in response to inner spirits imagined without. In rarer moments of perceptive translucence, one sees the need for the imposition of both definitions upon an allegedly sane universe. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The View from the Balcony of One’s Soul

It can only be in metaphorical terms by which we express such sentiments; and some recent essays have contended that true comprehension within the context of any language game requires, by necessity and tautological argument, metaphors. The concept of one’s “soul” itself may be entirely metaphorical — or a simile of sorts — and placed within the context of the physical terrain of a balcony, the combination of the immaterial with the material presents an image beyond mere fanciful flights of the imagination, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The Wake-up Call

It can be requested pursuant to a prior arrangement or, with today’s technology, prewired on one’s own electronic device. Time was when there existed an employed switchboard operator sitting in front of a pock-marked surface deftly inserting plugs of a dozen or more connections simultaneously, like an octopus whose coordinated extremities swirl about under and over with cross-purposed entanglements, pulling and inserting, with headphones half dangling, calmly stating, “This is your wakeup call. Have a good morning!” […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The Farcical Foray

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. […] Read More …