OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: “Yes, but…”

The interjection of an affirmation followed by a conjunction can have multiple, unexpected meanings. Perhaps it is to provide a sharp contrast to a statement previously held and left unchallenged; or to “add” to a declaration thought to be somewhat inadequate and needing an appendage for completion otherwise incomplete or left with a void that could be misconstrued unless filled. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: If not X, then at least Y

Many such contingent annotations are in the form of: If not illegal, then at least unethical; or, if not unethical, then at least lacking of propriety, etc. It is the pathway to a lesser acceptance, where the focus of one’s aspiration is lowered because of the inevitability of discovering that evidence insufficient will be uncovered. Thus can one go on ad infinitum in various but similar forms: If not happiness, then at least some semblance of contentment; if not a soul mate, then at least someone to share my experiences with, etc. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Urban decay and the relevance of rye

There is a reason why phoniness cannot survive or endure for long on a farm, as opposed to the urban decay of mass population centers; the animals won’t stand for it, and there is no one to be pretentious for, when hard work, sweat and toil replaces the incessant striving for acceptance, consumption and coercive condescensions. It is not an accident that Caulfield spends his time in the decay of urban life, amongst people who display a duality of faces and concealed motives, while all the time dreaming of an imaginary existence in a field of rye, catching all of the children who may run astray in the innocence of their blinded youth. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Employee Disability Retirement: Our civilization of the spectacle

The concept is borrowed from the Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa (there are two additional names he formally possesses, “Pedro” and “Jorge”, as in, “Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa”, which likely encompasses family traditions of heritage and linear identification of relations, but it is sufficient to identify this momentary act of plagiarism negated by referring to the common and known reference), and refers to the widespread acceleration across all societies in the public display of what we once considered tasteless and base. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The Alliteration of Life

Cathartic calamities caused creatively cannot cooperatively contain characteristic contents clearly coordinated contumaciously. Sometimes, the insistence upon form can result in the nonsensical loss of clarity in substance; life often reflects the absurdities we establish by convention and societal imposition, and we pay the price for it. Life is like being a letter in a series of alliterative words; we are helpless in being attached, but cannot dissociate ourselves, separate one’s self, or otherwise excise the offending aspect. We are forever wedded like the proverbial two peas in a pod, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The Wake-up Call

It can be requested pursuant to a prior arrangement or, with today’s technology, prewired on one’s own electronic device. Time was when there existed an employed switchboard operator sitting in front of a pock-marked surface deftly inserting plugs of a dozen or more connections simultaneously, like an octopus whose coordinated extremities swirl about under and over with cross-purposed entanglements, pulling and inserting, with headphones half dangling, calmly stating, “This is your wakeup call. Have a good morning!” […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Reversal of Fortune

Life itself rarely reflects a steady, linear progression on a graph; the zig-zagging representing times of economic turmoil more accurately profiles a person’s span of existence. Moreover, one’s career is not necessarily the essence or paradigm of a given life’s experience; there are multiple factors, including emotional, births and deaths, marriages and medical conditions. How does one quantify an experience? […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: A Day Does Not a Life Make, Nor a Decade

The tragedy of extinguishment is the failure to recognize future potentiality. We often gauge the value of a lifetime based upon the quality of any given day. Yet, what happens in an arbitrary period of a life, whether viewed randomly on a day, or even assessed and evaluated over a decade, will rarely reflect the comparative worth of a lifetime as analyzed on a linear continuum. Youth is a wasted period of emergence; […]
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OPM Disability Retirement: The Coming Year

Calendric rhythms constitute artificial attempts at becoming partnered with time; like the music to which the dancer dances, there is nothing uglier than being out of step with the aura of a beat. Eternity of time marches in a continuum without notice or constraint; our bifurcated days are broken down into days, hours, minutes and fractions thereof, as ordered slices like slabs of beef prepared for delectable consumption. But whether the artificial imposition of our subjective categories have an impact upon the rhythmic tone of a cold and impervious world, is gleaned in rare moments of sudden insights, when a tremor shakes the foundations of tranquility, and we are awakened from the slumber of our own inventions. […]

 
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Federal Disability Retirement: The Statement, the Stranger and the How

Paper presentations are dangerous creatures; if read by a stranger, it lacks the context of familiarity, and therefore must include enough information and detail to lay the preparatory foundation for coherence and comprehensibility; when viewed by someone known, unwarranted inferences and implications may be extrapolated, where characters and references are alleged to be fictional representations of real people, events and encounters. […] Read More …