OPM Medical Retirement: The noisy neighborhood

It is the collective organism reflecting the individual, somewhat like the tripartite division of Plato’s theory of the soul; the neighborhood, filled with noises differentiated by weekdays, Fridays and weekends, reflects the character of the separate families who congregate to make up the entirety.  And, like Plato’s argument against appearances versus the reality of the essence of a thing, the façade of a neighborhood – the architectural structures, the number of bedrooms in each, the style of the roofs and the slope, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Wisdom’s hold on life

We never quite “get it”. Trans-generational imputing of wisdom is not part of modern society. In more “traditional” societies, multi-generational families live together out of practical reasons: Not only is it less expensive if the earnings are pooled into a single resource of means, but until marriage or an offer of economic leverage pulls a member away from the core, imparting of wisdom, experience and voices of learned care may be passed down from generation to generation. In the West, instead, the rush is to depart and fracture; to get away as quickly as possible; for, as youth is the cult of modernity, so folly of youth is the means by which we live. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The tentative step

This is a tough and dangerous world. No longer a Hobbesian State of Nature nor of War, the Social Contract as envisioned by Locke or Rousseau provides some nominal protection, and thus do we identify ourselves as “civilized” entities in yet a dystopian universe where a greater majority of the rest of the world acts with unconcerned insanity by engaging in senseless wars of mass killings and genocidal encounters. In such a world, we thoughtlessly bring newborns who must contend with an uncertain future, fraught with challenges unasked for and conflicts yet to be encountered. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Facts and Explanations

There is often a widespread misconception that “facts” need no elucidation or explanation, and somehow speak for themselves. There are, indeed, times when self-imposed limitation of apparent eloquence and bombastic, grandiloquent and pretentious verbosity is of use; for, scarcity of adjectives and brevity of prose can leave the plains and tundra of a descriptive narrative’s call for less inhabitants, and not more, to reveal the beauty of the linguistic landscape; but even in such instances, facts still require explanation. […] Read More …