OPM Disability Retirement: Urban decay and the relevance of rye

There is a reason why phoniness cannot survive or endure for long on a farm, as opposed to the urban decay of mass population centers; the animals won’t stand for it, and there is no one to be pretentious for, when hard work, sweat and toil replaces the incessant striving for acceptance, consumption and coercive condescensions. It is not an accident that Caulfield spends his time in the decay of urban life, amongst people who display a duality of faces and concealed motives, while all the time dreaming of an imaginary existence in a field of rye, catching all of the children who may run astray in the innocence of their blinded youth. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Employee Disability Retirement: The carousel of life

It is the easiest of analogies to ponder: of a vision in the humdrum of circularity; different sizes, shapes, and images of artistry; of the choices we make and the alternatives offered; where we sit in life, of the approaches we take and the variable speed of the up and down motion; do we possess the fearless temerity to change midway from a lumbering, elephantine facade to the sleek and pathological ride of a cheetah? Does the music have the concordant synchronicity such that it is neither an annoyance nor a distracting disturbance? Or do we even take note of the loud cacophony of the blaring entourage, or merely as a backdrop to the excitement in the very ride we undertake? […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Life Lessons

Most of us stumble through it, and somehow end up down unexpected corridors of unplanned venues; and then we have the nerve to think that we can have kids and impart wisdom we never learned, refused to lived by, and rarely listened to. It is said that hypocrisy is the characteristic of the common farce; it just happens to infect everyone else, and never ourselves. But there is an evolutionary determinant even in the comedy of life; it used to be that Western Philosophy would teach us to always seek out the substance of a thing, […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement: On the spectrum between fear and overconfidence

The “what ifs” of life tend to predominate; then, from the deep recesses of brute carnality, where evolutionary Darwinism remains wired in the DNA of a time when civilizations were yet to flourish, and where tea cups were merely in the imaginations of more genteel souls, a sense of uprightness, fortitude and strength of inner character dawns, and we walk out the door refreshed with a sense of deliberative purpose. But it turns out that such fleeting flourishes of fortuitous firmness lasts but for a twilight, and then we desire to crawl back into the womb of our former skeletal selves. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Byzantine Iconoclasm & Compromise

It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical. It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them. The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The Indomitable Spirit of Pursuit

Preparation in pursuit of an endeavor should always embrace an uncompromising resolve to see it through to the end. Such an attitude is quite different, and distinguishable, from mere stubbornness when the facts faced or the odds stacked clearly and convincingly manifest an inevitable defeat. The former attitude prepares one to refuse succumbing to the innate fear and weakness inherently existent in us all; the latter, a failure of recognition beyond rational discourse and comprised of an obsessive impulse contrary to good form. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Life’s Repertoire

It is one thing to have a stock of memorized pieces or performances from which one can reach back and employ, like an inventory of dusty artifacts which can be brought out for display upon request; quite another, however, to reveal it, dust off the residue, begin to showcase it, then be interrupted and, without missing a beat, to ad lib above and beyond the prepared piece. The tape recorder (does anyone even remember what that contraption is or was, in this digital age?), the CD, the digital device; once set, it can only be altered by enforced remixing. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Crisis Points of Urgency

Additional responsibilities unexpectedly piled on tend to magnify it; life’s inevitable bumps often reveal it; mere negative news may even confirm it; and medical conditions certainly quantify it. The “it” referenced by each subject signifies the crisis point and juncture of necessity; and the underlying substratum which forms the common element throughout, is the medical condition which impacts upon a person’s life. […]

 
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OPM Disability Retirement: Ends and Beginnings

One can be pensive or mournful about it; anxiety levels likely attach to either event; one is described and defined as the conclusion and afterthought, the other, as a preface or introduction.  The end of an event necessarily results in change, as does the beginning; and perhaps it is merely a circularity of unending infinity, or a linear continuum which extends beyond the horizon of concavity. […] Read More …