FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Retaining innocence in modernity

Is it even possible?  Moreover, what would such a state of Being be like, in contrast to the conceptual entanglements in the aggregate as defined, say, 50 – 100 – 200 years ago?  For, as deviancy has been defined downwards in an uncontrollable spiral of destructiveness, so the very concept of “innocence” has altered in meaning, tone and implications, has it not?  Is “innocence” now merely the absence of cynicism, or perhaps a greater form of naiveté?  Is lack of sophistication the same as being in a state of innocence, and if the latter is lost, does it necessarily mean the consumption of the former as well? […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Sign Posts

Whether used as a noun or a verb, the second grammatical appendage can have multiple meanings: as a stick of lumber; as an activity placing information, warning, directional declarative or similar linguistic affirmations; and the combination of the two words can be read only within a greater contextual enlightenment depending upon what meaning is meant to be conveyed or how the inflection and accent is emphasized. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The sweater draped over a chair

You look in the room and see the sweater draped over a chair. You turn your gaze elsewhere, engage the ongoing conversations and the din of others distracted. Later, you turn back your gaze again, and the sweater is gone. You look about to try and see whether someone picked it back up, is wearing it, or perhaps put it somewhere else. You imply and infer – yes, one must follow the general grammatical rule that the speaker implies while the listener infers; but you are both the speaker and the listener, the one who observes and the same one who steps outside of the conscious universe to observe the observed. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Implicit Questions

In many questions, there are multiple sub-questions. Take, for example, the question: Why are you so tired? You may respond first by answering the unasked but implicit question by declaring: “But I am not tired”. That is not what the question asked. Such an answer is a response to the implied question within the question, of: “Are you tired?” To the question actually asked, the proper response might be: I stayed up late last night reading. The presumptive sub-question unstated and silent but implicit in the major question posited in duality of a contingent combination, is precisely what is often termed as “lawyerly”, and thus somehow deceitful, tricky and attempting to subvert by having the responder accept a non-explicit presumption of facts. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The Trader

We all think we are the “best” at it; and, indeed, that is one of the espoused qualifications boasted by one of the major party’s candidates: a greater deal-maker, the penultimate trader. Such a person claims to be able to spot the jewel in the hidden crown; the uncut diamond in the quicksand of life; and the unrevealed luminosity in a universe covered in the abyss of vacuity. We all like to think of ourselves as that great horse-trader […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Life’s Alliteration

The repetitive recurrence of mirroring sounds or letters at the beginning of adjacent words is merely a reflection of how we live our lives. What is inherent in human beings that we would discover, create or otherwise compile an aggregation of such a linguistic phenomena? The universe could have continued happily on its mindless course of fated determinism without people engaging in such nonsensical rhythms of prose and poetry; but as each act of indeterminate vacuity [… ] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Program: Word Piles

The etymology connotes the Biblical narrative found in Genesis, generally referred to as the Tower of Babel; in that case, not of words, but of civilizations attempting to reach the heavens in order to breach the power of the universe. But Babel was more than the diaspora of a rebellious cabal of God’s children gathered to defy and deface; it had to do with evil, impure intent, and the conspiracy of human depravity in the face of a pure heaven and the violation of man’s sacrosanct relationship implicit after the metaphor of the Great Flood. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The labyrinth of human psychology

Daedalus, in Greek mythology, constructed the complex maze for King Minos of Crete; it is reported that the multicursal patterns were so elaborate that even the designer himself could barely find a pathway out. That is, indeed, reflective of the complexity of human beings. Cynics are quick to dismiss our own species as predictable, untalented in any specific category but only in general terms; boastful beyond a simpleton’s ego and successful in self-promotion and propagation only because it is too lazy to do otherwise. […] Read More …

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Reality T.V.

That we would have the imaginative capacity to invent such a medium and attract countless millions to sit and passively view the saga on a picture screen tells much about our species.  To be persuaded to suspend disbelief and discuss it as if it reflects a reality and can be designated as such, unmasks the myth of representing […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Jobs: Prerogatives

The exclusivity of a right or privilege can remain dormant until asserted; and assertion triggers and activates, and suddenly that which consisted merely of quietude and inertia, becomes the centrality of controversy, contention and adversarial encounter. Much of life is like that; resembling the proverbial elephant in the sitting room, or the decaying clump of unidentified derivation of unseemly scents, people tend to avoid and take a wide berth while acting “as if” throughout the day, the week, a year, and in a lifetime. […] Read More …