Last Updated on April 14, 2017
Once, we used pencils because such implements are almost always accompanied by an eraser. It was an acknowledgment of human imperfection, of the potentiality for making a mistake, and the realization that any extent of human activity should recognize the wish, the need and reality for erasure. But that such corrections could similarly be made for lives lived, hurts fostered and damages perpetrated. Yet, the historical requirement that has necessitated the wish for erasure has itself been erased, or significantly diminished – of a conscience instilled and allowed for maturation, where remorse, regret and readiness of heart for redemption touches upon the deeper essence of one’s soul.
Modernity has persuaded itself that guilt is but an anthropological myth created to make subservience a cauldron of psychological neediness. Psychology is king; pharmacological stupor is the methodology for erasure, if not avoidance; and, what once we wished for in a guilt-ridden caravan of emotional remorse opening the door to forgiveness, regret and redemption, is now repressed to hide the once glorious sheen of the god in man, the elevated soul beyond the appetitive beastliness, and a lowering of that pinnacle of creation where we once walked leisurely beyond the garden of heavenly quietude, now banished from paradise into a constant flux of a state of war and cruelty.
Yet, despite attempting to destroy the wish for erasure, that goal to erase the wish for erasure has itself been an imperfect and unperfected initiation. Somehow, the flame still remains, and like the eraser that never quite completely does the job, but allows for that faint image of writing to still remain, the wish for erasure leaves the humanity of man within grasp of redemption.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the analogy of the pencil with the eraser is akin to the circumstances the Federal and Postal employee finds him/herself in: Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a means to start anew, by “erasing” the career one could not complete, but allowing for continuation in the private sector, perhaps another vocation, a second career, or a means to engage an activity for productivity in another realm.
The wish for erasure has always been a part of human desire, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is the closest one may get to reclaiming that redemptive opportunity to engage a future yet untold.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire