Perhaps, with the success of the movie, Drive My Car, he will finally be honored with the last accolade withheld: Nobel Prize for Literature. Each year, thousands in his home country await with bated breath, expecting his rightful claim. He has won every other prize; pronounced as the writer who should be honored with the highest literary acclaim; but each year, the despair felt by Murakami watchers is palpable.
Will he get it next year? Abdulrazak Gurnah “stole” it this past year. Sigh.
And what will the thousands who gather each year, hoping that this will be the year — what will they say if again he is robbed, left unrecognized, unexplainably ignored, shunned aside, left empty-handed, perennially stripped of the dignity which would cast him with the eternals like Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Pearl Buck, T.S. Eliot, Faulkner, Camus, Steinbeck, Morrison… but where is Willa Cather, the quintessential writer who wrote about the heartland of America?
There have been many, many deserving authors who never won that most coveted of prizes, and that is merely a reflection of life itself — that we don’t always get what we believe we deserve, or of what others may deserve, and it is interesting how the thing we do not have is what we yearn for most.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a disabling medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the Murakami Watch is probably a mere nuisance of an issue.
Health, in the end, is more important than whether or not any given author should or should not receive the pinnacle of literary prizes; and health is the one thing that, when lost, itself becomes the coveted item.
Contact a disability lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, and while a Federal Disability Retirement annuity may not in and of itself give you back your health, it will give you the time to try and recuperate and regain that most coveted of prizes.
As for the Murakami Watch? Sit back and enjoy it from both sides of the spectrum: If you don’t like Murakami’s writings, relish the yearly denial; and if you love his writings, wait with bated breath for this year — and the next. At least you can enjoy the camaraderie of shared despair and loss.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
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Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Toxic Associations
At some point, the “distancing” begins. First, a subtle move — not saying “hello”; not answering a phone call; avoiding the places where the usual meetings once took place.
Then, perhaps the prefatory denials: “We weren’t really friends” (an adverb to enhance the denial, but a form of grammatical insertion which is more telling when used than not applied at all); “Oh, I didn’t know him hardly at all”. And then the final nail to the coffin: “Who? The name is not familiar.” Well…how about these photographs which show that you were with him/her multiple times?
Toxic associations can range from the blatant to the subtle; but once the toxicity becomes apparent, the rats begin to abandon ship in droves.
Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition are often treated as such associations — “toxic” to the extent that they are looked upon as plague-filled individuals who are no longer a member of the “team”. When those allegedly toxic associations begin to be felt — of coworkers ignoring you; of supervisors looking at you with suspicion, etc., it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.
Your medical conditions are often viewed as contagious — not in terms of transmitting diseases, but in terms of no longer being useful to the Agency or the Postal service.
Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits and begin to disassociate yourself from the toxic associations — theirs, not yours — and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Lawyer
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