Medical Retirement from the Office of Personnel Management: The soul’s net worth

What is one’s sole net worth? In a written format, the distinction between the two concepts are quite obvious; but if in a verbal exchange, would we be able to catch that subtle distinction of nonexistent intonation? For, the exchange of the vowel “u” in the middle of the word for an “e” attached to the tail alters the meaning of the query, does it not? From an evaluation of one’s singular calculation – of taking the gross amounts of estimated value of possessions and purchases and subtracting outstanding debts, etc., and accounting for one’s sole net worth – not taking into consideration one’s spouse’s inheritance or assets predictably to be acquired […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The compromised life

We all make them, though we deny it. Iconoclasts scorn it; the extremes of either side scoff at it; and, in the end, it reflects the reality of who we are, how we live, and by what vaunted principles we purportedly possess.

On a theoretical level, it is easy to remain the stalwart – that singular entity standing on principle and commitment. The one who has never experienced war – to express beliefs of “courage”, “unwavering loyalty” and blind bravery declared in wrappings of the flag and national identity. Or of fidelity and traditional values despite personal shortcomings of multiple marital infidelities and 3 or 4 marriages, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Wisdom’s hold on life

We never quite “get it”. Trans-generational imputing of wisdom is not part of modern society. In more “traditional” societies, multi-generational families live together out of practical reasons: Not only is it less expensive if the earnings are pooled into a single resource of means, but until marriage or an offer of economic leverage pulls a member away from the core, imparting of wisdom, experience and voices of learned care may be passed down from generation to generation. In the West, instead, the rush is to depart and fracture; to get away as quickly as possible; for, as youth is the cult of modernity, so folly of youth is the means by which we live. […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The Soul’s need for silence

If the world was merely one constant clatter, would we be able to stand the din of life? Just as existence needs nothingness in order to have the separation of meaningful discourse, and as sentences need grammatical pauses (except in the cases of Faulkner and Joyce, perhaps), so the soul requires silence in the face of difficulties uninterrupted. Medical conditions create havoc in lives; at first, perhaps just an annoyance or a nuisance, and the natural inclination is to rely upon the past that we know, and how […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Fairytales, mythologies and lies

They all constitute the arena of “make-believe”.  Yet, we excuse the first, ignore the second, and feel guilt and shame for embracing the third – or, at least some of us, do.  Of fairytales, we share in the delight of passing on such tall tales of wonderlands and Eskimo nights full of shooting stars and talking Polar Bears; of mythologies, we recognize the need for lost civilizations to have embraced a means […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Implicit Questions

In many questions, there are multiple sub-questions. Take, for example, the question: Why are you so tired? You may respond first by answering the unasked but implicit question by declaring: “But I am not tired”. That is not what the question asked. Such an answer is a response to the implied question within the question, of: “Are you tired?” To the question actually asked, the proper response might be: I stayed up late last night reading. The presumptive sub-question unstated and silent but implicit in the major question posited in duality of a contingent combination, is precisely what is often termed as “lawyerly”, and thus somehow deceitful, tricky and attempting to subvert by having the responder accept a non-explicit presumption of facts. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The perfection of nothingness

The advantage of nothingness over the clutter of everything is that the former – despite lacking any characteristic of anything concrete, or perhaps because of it – retains and reflects an aura of perfection. It is perhaps a puzzle to consider perfection in that which represents vacuity, but think about it: It is the figment and filament of negation which can represent the penultimate artifice of unsullied brightness; everything that is in being, can be found fault with, but nothing that exists cannot be prosecuted for imperfection. […] 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 Disability Retirement: Giving lip service

What does it mean to merely give “lip service”?  Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy of committing to words the sincerity of inaction.  In other words, it is merely the utterance of words, with nothing to follow.  This is a society that speaks much, and does little.  We give lip service to the braggadocio of being a productive society, yet, […] Read More …