Federal Disability Retirement: Chaldean and Pythagorean Numerology

Is it a submission to determinism, or is there some hint of validity other than a self-fulfilling prophesy?  Can names, dates and events be translated into a numerical construct such that predictability of one’s future can be ascertained?  The differences between the two are apparently substantive; the algorithms and numbered “personalities” are altered when the spectrum of equations (1 through 8 under the Chaldean system, and the addition of the next number in sequence under the Pythagorean methodology); […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The New Year

Perhaps it is not merely an arbitrary demarcation, after all. It is around the time when the winter solstice reaches its pinnacle, and the days become lengthier, the nights shorter. The year following – the “new” year – begins its ascendancy, leaving behind the frigid desolation yet to endure. And the excesses of behavior – of drinking, celebration and abandonment of all societal decorum and convention? It is a way of expiating the pent-up constraints of self-discipline and customary resolve; a way to release the energy of social boundaries for a few hours, a fortnight, and a morning after without regret or remorse. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Of the Black Widow

The subtlety of its attractiveness is often overlooked because of its mythology of potent venomousness, where it is said that its sting is more than 15 times the deadliness of a mere prairie rattlesnake, which — at least we can attribute an anthropomorphic characteristic of favorability — warns one with its loud systems resulting from its namesake. It is often invisible, as its black and unassuming appearance allows for quiet traversing along the undersides of human existence; and the signature red or orange marking, […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Human Perfection

Human perfection, it would appear, can be achieved. How? Simply by altering the definition of terms and utilizing the malleability of language, the short attention-span of historical memory, and the capacity of people to fool themselves. It is the methodology of “moving the goal posts” once the opposing team comes within striking vicinity of scoring in a game; instead of tinkering with the substance of the issue, we merely change the rules of application. […] Read More …

OPM Disability: Those Winds of Change That Portend to Pretend Promises

Change is an inevitable circumstance of life; it is what we seek when we are discontented; what we demand when threatened; and of which we fear, when least we expected it. For Plato and Aristotle, the puzzle of life and the winds of change had precursors who, in the tradition of ancestral doomsayers, declared the natural corollaries reflecting discontent, despair and fear, as represented by Heraclitus and Parmenides. […] Read More …