FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of the Charmed, Charted or Chartered Life

Of the troika of possibilities presented, the first is rarely available or even an option, if by a “charmed life” is defined as one where wealth is never a restrictive element, potentiality is ever compensated by unlimited resource, and freedom to choose — whether an unproductive, leisurely lifestyle or one which mixes pleasure with some semblance of “doing something” — is but a whim of desire and utterance of a command. Few of us have this option. As for the second — of a charted life, where cultural conventions, societal norms and limited possibilities structurally imposed by birth, circumstance and family lineage […] Read More …

OPM Medical Separation & Retirement: Of self-expression in society

There exists a proportionate correlation if charted on a graph, between the rise of a need for greater self-expression and the alienation from the individual from a sense of belonging and community. The human animal has an inner need for acceptance and comity within the context of societal cohesion, and this is no different from other species and their behavioral patterns, excepting the “lone wolf” characteristics where mating or predatory consummation represents the only points of contact. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Employee Medical Separation: The abstract concept of “the other”

Existentialism could only have arisen from the ashes of nihilism; Western Philosophy, spanning the spectrum of metaphysics, epistemology, Rationalism, Empiricism and the tradition of questioning origins, essences and the compendium of who we are and what it all means, does not lead to the natural annihilation of intellectual curiosity. But Existentialism, does. Why? Because Existentialism is an emotional reaction, rather than a rational rebuttal. From the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the denigration of human dignity reduced to mere abstractions, the philosophy of negation of which it is characterized, […] Read More …