FERS Disability Retirement: Private hells

It is a familiar refrain to note that everyone has a self-contained “private hell”; and an even greater understanding that it is well that such thoughts of other hells are both private, and for the most part, left silent without conveyance or communication. But that is changing, in large part, because people believe that mass dissemination of information has now unleashed any unspoken decorum of dignified discretion. We believe, now, that everyone should “tell all”; that private matters once left as remnants of shameful self-confessions should be publicized because it is healthy for the inner soul to be uncovered. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: And then we die

(It is the parenthetical previous statement that ultimately matters, left blank to be completed, and never to be presumed). Actions of finality, or seemingly so, tend to create an aura of despair and angst. Once, in a world where purpose was never questioned, and the teleological end of man never brought forth the hint of doubt, the cohesiveness of society’s resolve was never a pause. It is the modernity of hesitation, trepidation and loss of judgment that brings us to the pit of incessant questioning, as opposed to “doing”. This is a maddening world, where the rise of Existentialism and post-modern impotence leaves us to seek therapy at every turn. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The collision of grammar and life

The cynic will scour each entry for just such an error of punctuation or misspelling, and declare that, indeed, the author’s own actions confirm such an event; the greater question, of course, is not that it occurred, but of what import or consequence. There was a time, of just a few generations ago, where the number of noted authors, commentators and social giants measured by pen and ink, were counted by the hands of a single individual; now, with the diffuse pervasiveness which includes paper editions exponentially quantified by electronic media, as well as the vast array of blogs, comments and Internet “conversations” […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A penchant for excess

Do the historicity and context of a given time determine the individual’s proclivity for behavior otherwise deemed unnatural? Does that concept even apply anymore, as normative constraints are denigrated, societal conventions become ignored, and new frontiers bypassing the ethos of communities are no more than mere irritants to swat away? There has always been, of course, a penchant for excess inherent in the human essence; the British Royal Family, the French aristocracy, the Russian Czar and the modern totalitarian state where wealth and abundance allows an opening for the limitless reach of man’s appetite and predilection for excess. […] Read More …