Long Term Disability Federal & Postal Employees: Perspective

We all have one.  When we fail to recognize that others, also, have one — and one which is different from ours — that is when we get into arguments, disputes, irreconcilable differences, etc.  The complex Kantian position of ordering the universe through a structural imposition of an otherwise chaotic reality gets filtered down to the ordinary person’s understanding that, yes, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Habit

No, this is not about that peculiar creature that Tolkien created who used to rule the earth but now hides in little dirt hutches in the deep recesses of forests (don’t all children and adults who have read his works believe in their heart of hearts that Hobbits still exist, and we just don’t see them?); rather, this, too, is a creature of sorts, just not the imaginary creation that gave joy to so many.  How is it that we come to learn it?  Is there a numerical value that must be first ascribed before the regularity of X becomes a Habit-Y?  […] Read More …

Medical Separation and Retirement under FERS or CSRS: The stick figure across the street

We all drew them. They are simple figures, one-dimensional, created not only by children and uncreative hands, but by sophisticated artists who convey complexity through their uncomplicated depiction. Upon such lack of depth, we can project an unending dearth of fillers, precisely because the simple lines invite us to increase the servile skinniness by piling a composite upon the lean figures which are mere caricatures devoid of substance. […] Read More …

Federal Government Disability Retirement: The Best of Mediocrity

There is an overriding principle that, where excellence is sought, higher expectations are exceeded.  Acceptance of a given human condition and resignation to that which is less than the best, is to embrace the heart of banality and to reject that august status reserved for the human species, of being above the animals and just below the angels. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Those Strands That Bind

Issues in life are rarely singular or simple; instead, they tend to be like a spider’s web, woven into a complex fabric of intricate turbulence, beautiful in its interlacing connections, waiting attractively for its prey unbeknownst to the subtle entanglements welcoming patiently. And so do we walk right into those strands that bind. Legal issues are like that. They rarely present themselves in clean lines of linear singularities. Instead, like relationships, children and the dawn of technological innovation, they criss-cross through boundaries yet unknown, with dangers foreboding beyond consequences plainly displayed and forever mysterious. […] Read More …

FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Whispers of Time

Sometimes, in the deadened silence of night, thoughts beyond our daily routine creep into the shadows of the subconscious; or, in the quietude of rustling leaves, a harkening which is lost but for the whispers of time. Is it true that there are signs, voices, foreboding elements around which warn of impending events beyond the pragmatism of our technologically-driven society? Did epochs of yore possess knowledge beyond what we discover on Google? […] Read More …