Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: The Kokeshi doll

They are wooden dolls that are colorful, with expressions painted upon that remain frozen except for the change that naturally occurs when viewed from differing angles of sight, reflecting altered perspectives and modified vantage points depending upon one’s own emotions.  They sit on tabletops, shelves and can be a child’s playmate, though parents often view them more valuably as display items rather than taking the chance that the little brother may play them as reenactments of a prior war imagined to be fought by banging pieces of wood […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Different gradations of form and tint

The former often refers to architectural structures; the latter, to the exterior or interior paint, color and hue; and, together, they present to the observing eye the sensible objects that we experience through sight, smell and at least as to the former, tactile encounters.  Words are funny things; we not only create and apply them, but concurrently establish rules for utility and usage such that restrictions apply, expansiveness beyond certain boundaries become prohibited, and modifications for allowances in the placement of a particular sentence are constrained. […] 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 …

OPM Medical Retirement: Balance and Order in a Lost World

Once achieved, death destroys; it is the anomaly of life, that the linear progression leads toward its own terminus, and by slow and incremental degeneration, its own vivacity is defined by a sense of self-immolation. The realization of attainment almost always occurs upon surpassing the apex of an ordering of one’s life, and so the inevitable decline necessarily diminishes any joy derived from self-reflection of having achieved that balance and order for which we strive. […] Read More …

Medical Separation & Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The Architect of Awe

There are murals of inspired souls, touched by a hand guided by forces unknown; of vaulted ceilings and high arches, and mosaics which are crafted, painted and tediously combined; and as one approaches such architectural wonders, the eyes are lifted upwards toward the heavens in such a natural order of elevation that there is no pause for self-consciousness. Contrast that to the technology of modernity, where huddled masses with sauntering forms and stooped shoulders look down upon the glare of Smartphones, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Pension Annuity: Today, life is good…

It is the set of 3 periods at the end of the sentence, identified in grammatical terms as an ellipses, allowing for a trailing thought or a hesitation of motive, and here which differentiates from a singular finality of a period postulated to prevent a purposive punctuality of partition from a postscript. If the last two periods were extracted and deleted, the delineation would connote a declarative assertion, unhesitant in conclusion, and confident in execution. With those two additions, it implies and denotes hesitancy, a pause leaving the impression of loss or lack of confidence, and unable to determine the cogency of opinion formulated but for the ellipses. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Help for Federal Employees: Slices & Wholes

Short stories provide a slice of life; novels, a genre which attempts to provide a picture of a greater whole, and when it falls short, will often be an opportunity to manifest a trilogy of works.  But fiction never quite captures the essence of entirety, and we are left with the part, a necessary void, and a missing piece of the puzzle. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Dickens, Salinger & Capote

It is always dangerous to offer an overview of complexity; simplicity of explanation often teeters upon the precipice of superficiality, and when it comes to the psychology of people, we normally get it wrong. Yet, we can try. For Dickens, the childhood experiences of destitution and humble beginnings allowed for a magnification of love for humanity borne of cruelty in childhood. In Salinger, we see the pent-up destruction of a young man whose anguish was molded through sights, sounds and experiences devastated by war. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The Soliloquy

For the stage actor, it is the consummate moment of the trade — the opportunity to reveal the depth of character before an audience whose attention is monolithically focused upon the singular pinnacle of highlighted speech. Shakespeare’s monologues of anguish and despair, of the most private of thoughts spoken through an accepted device of artistic asides which allows for the viewing public to listen in on reasonings otherwise hidden but for conversations with others or the ravings and rantings of the fool who sputters. Yet, how reflective of true life such moments are, of the soliloquy which we engage but in the quietude of unspoken words. […] Read More …