OPM Disability Retirement: The dullness of creative lack

Have you ever observed the child who takes a stick and imagines himself/herself (we are trying to maintain the decorum of political correctness, here, by including all genders, because the implication otherwise in using a reflexive pronoun identifying a specific population apparently denotes that excluding the other half-or-so of the world’s inhabitants is discriminatory and an engagement of possible malfeasance, which we would not want to be charged with) emboldened by a weapon in hand and being the hero of an imaginary battle, invincible to a fault, brave without being arrogant, and making garbled sounds of whizzing bullets and fantastical feats of being wounded but with tenacity of self-will, capturing the enemy fort, being generous to those unfortunate prisoners of war and conquering singlehandedly a page in the history of unbounded heroism?

Contrast that depicted slice of imagination, to the child who is given every expensive toy and accouterments available on Amazon – the superhero wardrobe with cape; a replica of a life-like weapon; plastic hand grenades; and whatever other appendages that replace the creativity of one’s imagination – even of sound-effects emitted, downloaded on one’s cellphone placed in the utility belt worn by the kid; suddenly, it is mere motions that the child goes through, while all of the trappings have been satisfied even before the fun began.

That is what we do, isn’t it, as parents who believe that we were deprived in our own childhoods?  We gave everything, not knowing that by doing so, we took away the most important piece of the proverbial puzzle.  It is the puzzle of the dullness of creative lack; the less we had, the more we had to compensate and greater the reward in cognitive activity; and the more we gave, the less the child had to provide his or her creative input, thereby diminishing the soul’s inner force of imagination, resulting in the negative consequence in the dullness of creative lack.

That which we are given that undermines creative energy, we submit with the lazy side of human nature; and as inactivity and inertia results in atrophy, so gifts unsolicited in overabundance of generosity can actually harm in the ignorance of thoughtless plenitude.  And so we often find ourselves in the rut of daily monotony, on that treadmill of constancy even when we know we are destroying ourselves.  Children, in their innocence, don’t realize the harm; adults, too, but not in innocence but cynicism of life’s callouses, forge ahead even if they do recognize the harm.

Isn’t that what the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who persists in the self-immolation of continuing a Federal or Postal career, is actually doing?  For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, it is often the reality of the harm perpetrated by continuing in the Federal or Postal position that prompts, compels, and finally necessitates the preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Going down the road of Federal Disability Retirement is often considered a major decision and a giant leap in one’s life, but it certainly does not portend of a dullness of creative lack to consider its resulting benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Life’s enjoyment

Are we ever taught that?  If the answer is in the negative, then from whence did we learn, attain or otherwise receive the tools to engage in the purity of sensation such that we could embrace it?  Did we become such through osmosis; from imprints; from learned behavior encompassing a lifetime of observations reinforced by wisdom’s refrain upon the blank chalkboard of our consciousness?  How does one “enjoy” life, anymore than learning to ride a bicycle, drive a car or care for a cute puppy (the last in the list, of course, need not be learned, but only be taken in by the natural affinity one has upon seeing the eyes of warmth, intelligence and fierce loyalty displayed, and is an exception and one of life’s conundrums to be accepted without questioning)?

There are many who walk about, who have absolutely no clue as to how one can, should or would have any enjoyment at all; and thus the total immersion in one’s work, or projects begun and always left unfinished – for, to complete them would mean that something ended, and that would force one into a reflection about the meaning, value and relevance of one’s activities, would it not?

One often hears the familiar refrain:  “I don’t know how to enjoy life; to me, unless I am busy with work, chores, updating my Facebook page, texting friends or jogging, I can’t be happy.”  Productivity is the measure of success; time set aside for vacations – despite still doing email, texting, messaging or other forms of “connectivity” as advertised to be the horror of all horrors if loss of it were to ever occur – is a concept that questions the very meaning of life’s enjoyment.  For, if one pauses for a moment to reflect:  Is the treadmill one is on merely for purposes of getting off for a moment, then to get right back on in order to find, again, a time to get off for another period of repose?

If so, how is that any different from Camus’ essay on the absurdity of life’s perspective as seen through the eyes of a French Existentialist, and specifically, of the Myth of Sisyphus and the condemnation by the gods to roll the boulder up the hill, only to watch it tumble down, then to engage in the eternal monotony of pushing it back up, only to observe its descent?

Life’s enjoyment, and the promise for tomorrow, was always meant to be more than that – of a daily sense of joy, a widespread sensation of contentment, and an ease of burden when once we were innocent children playing with but a ready laughter to give.  It is the truth that haunts, and especially the proverbial quip about the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.  With the persistent onslaught of stimuli unable to be resisted, we allow for the daily bombardment to deplete the little energy we have in reserve.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition not only intervenes in the ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, but further, depletes, diminishes and – ultimately — destroys even the potentiality to enjoy life and all of its complex presentations, the option to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must be considered.

Yes, it is a long and arduous bureaucratic process.  No, going through the process will not enhance, for the short term, life’s enjoyment.  But in the end, necessary changes are called for – nay, compelled by – medical conditions that interrupt life’s enjoyment, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is to enhance that potential for the future enjoyment of life’s joys, while perhaps foregoing the short-term stubble of inconvenient interludes of angst-driven necessities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Means to an end

There is a difference, with a real distinction, between utilizing a process as a means to an end, as opposed to using people for the same purpose.  Such a concept should be a “given” – that logical posit which is unquestionably true, without the likelihood of being controverted, and generally accepted as a foundational principle in a caring society and community.  Yet, modernity has contravened such a belief, and truth and falsity have become relative concepts on the pendulum of linguistic elasticity where the spectrum of facts, beliefs and opinions have become an amalgamation of conflated confusions.

Have we lost the capacity to recognize and identify distinctions that are substantively different because of their self-evident meaning and relevance?  Do we no longer teach logic – whether of the fundamental Aristotelian syllogism, or the greater complexity by extension as delineated in Russell’s three-volume magnum opus, Principia Mathematica – such that we can no longer argue for even the basics when confronted by once-accepted paradigms that Kantian categorical imperatives allegedly put to rest forever and a day?

Yet, that final proverbial “day” has now passed, purportedly, and such statements have become mere fodder for dismissive philosophical trash-heaps characterized by “Mereology” and other third-rate, Oprah-like condescension of forgeries masking as genuine belief systems.

Sartre and Camus presented their cases; the former, through a meandering philosophical treatise some would characterize as “Heidegger-Lite” (the comparison can be made superficially on the titles alone – of “Being and Time” as opposed to “Being and Nothingness”) and where his plays allowed for greater coherence than any of his “serious” attempts, while the latter conveyed the angst of human repugnance to becoming “objectified” through novels depicting alienation and the dilemma of human value in the very activity of defiance and rebellion.

Man, we are told, should always be treated as an end in and of himself, and never as a means.  Yet, in this mechanized, electronic-ized, technologized society, where the Smartphone is King and the tactile engagement with one another is merely an afterthought, we have to recognize that such inane beliefs are now mere archaic formulations of former times, previous generations and outdated constructs no longer applicable.  The Angst of Existentialism has come full circle; that which we scoffed at because it originated from Continental Europe is no longer a Sisyphean mythology, but a reality that now consumes.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the weight and burden of a medical condition, being treated as a means to an end becomes part of the process.

Past accolades of dedication and loyalty fail to leave a trail of concomitant interest and empathy of warmth; you find out quickly that others don’t give a hoot about distinguishing between “means” and “ends”; but in the end, it is precisely the means by which you end up treating a fellow human being, and the very filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application should in and of itself warrant treatment of being an “end”, and not a “means” – but such self-evident principles appear to no longer be the accepted normative value within a society that cries tears for the Oprah show, but not for the real human experiences of the person in your own office, sitting in front of you, a foot away, real, not imagined, not a picture on Facebook, but a person of real flesh and blood.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: How we treat one another

Separation, distance, objectification and electronic means of communication; the loss of human emotions in the very living of life, where the organic has become equivalent to the android, where the original concept encompassed an admixture of synthetic humanity and the combining of components both human and mechanized – and so the artificial construct that we feared in those novels of sci-fi nightmares has, in fact, been realized.

Orwell’s major work, 1984 is, by comparison, both prescient and outdated.  The underlying concept of a totalitarian state is still relevant, but the technological means by which we have achieved such a state of affairs, and the naïve assumption that we would somehow be informed enough to recognize when we are being “had” by such powerful forces of domination, leaves one breathless with puzzlement.

Existentialism, especially of the French version (i.e., Sartre and Camus, as the two paradigmatic participles – borrowing from the grammatical meaning and translating it into the positional element of influence) argues at the inception from its philosophical origination that language games geared towards objectification and distancing from the humanity of worth, value and normative constraints as defined by the traditions evolving from social contracts, is intended to allow for the justification of the depraved to engage in violent acts of crimes against humanity.

Language allows for cruelty.  How we describe, in what form and manner the grammatical application separates, distances and isolates groups into demeaning and debasing linguistic caricatures that alters the essence of who we are, allows for how we treat one another to result in the horrors of 20th Century camps of torture, totalitarianism and total war.  We can couch language and hide behind it to do as we want.  Power left in the hands of evil, with the meaninglessness of language disseminated among a gullible population left without dictionaries and relying upon the technological information controlled by an elite few, will only progressively decay and deteriorate the foundations of liberty and freedom.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who already experience the consequences of having to submit to linguistic elasticity, meaningless phrases of power and totalitarianism are already in a difficult position when a medical condition begins to impact and prevent the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in the career one has chosen.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often a test of sorts that reveals how we treat one another, and it is always better to know at the outset who one’s friends and caring associates are, than to remain in ignorance while the knives are sharpened for the time you turn your back and expect some protections to have watchful eyes while the weakness of debilitating medical conditions continues to progressively deteriorate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of human frailty

Youth is the folly that disbelieves; middle age, of a progressive realization that the past does not lie, but teaches us of existent graveyards we may have passed unnoticed just yesterday, with question suddenly more prominent about mortality, the afterlife, and whether it is possible to cheat illness, death or debilitation from its awaiting wages.  Do we call out to the gods in a moment of desperation, ready to make a Faustus-like contract, or buy into the cosmetic youth-movement with lotions, fitness regimens and, in the end, surgical alterations to cheat the fates of time?  Of human frailty, there is no avoidance.

We can demand damage-control and engage in the peripheral tinkering where the god’s of malevolent intent care not because of the harmlessly futile attempts we employ; and, in the end, nothing subverts but merely detracts, and only extends just beyond the embrace of our own egoism so long as we avoid the hanging mirror in the privacy of bathrooms unlit.

What cosmetic and artificial superstitions we initiate matters little; for human frailty is part of the joke that the mirth of mythological gods make game of, with mocking repose during lighthearted times of boredom refracted.  Frailty steals the clothes that hide, leaving naked the humanness of what we are, unearthed to reflect the very soil from whence we came and to which we return.

Medical conditions unravel the façade we create and surround ourselves, hiding the little we don’t already reveal, like Adam in those Medieval depictions with a leaf leaving the imagination to view beyond the superficial coverings of our own lives.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from such medical conditions, such that they prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the positional duties slotted, the reality of human frailty comes to the forefront.

For, ultimately, the purpose in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is twofold:  A recognition, acknowledgment and admission that the time has come to attend to priorities in life otherwise disregarded for too long; and an understanding that the history of human frailty does not merely depict and describe in dusty old books forgotten in the arcane halls of crumbling libraries, but lives on beyond the artificial facades of cosmopolitan egos that dwell beneath where the gods of fate, time and reincarnated echoes of forgotten graveyards remind with a cold whisper of tomorrow’s past.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The immovable individual

Aristotle’s unmoved mover is an interesting conceptual posit:  it is based upon the cohesive compromise between the Pre-Socratics as paradigmatic examples encapsulated by Parmenides and Heraclitus – of the universe as seen in a singular “oneness” as opposed to embroiled in constant flux and change.

The unmoved mover consolidates into a synergistic compromise the pendulum between the two extremes:  Here is the apex of perfection representing unchangeableness, surrounded by the universe of flux and constant metamorphosis striving towards that paradigm of perfection; and so the world of alteration and the oneness of the infinite are balanced in a yin-yang of a complete whole.

Within this universe of the immovable and inconstancy reflects the types of individuals roaming the world – of the indecisive and hollow man without a moral compass, to the principled and uncompromising stalwart whom some would characterize as narrow-minded and radical in holding extremist views unshaken by cultural alterations and daily vicissitudes of undermined normative paradigms.

But history portends of change, and it is the mounds of human detritus that combine to reveal that flux is the foundation of successful adaptation for survival in Nature, as well as in human society – of business models that must follow the trends of cultural metamorphosis, to the embracing of a changing society and structures of sociological tremors throughout.  Yes, having principles to abide by is important; but Man is neither perfect like the Unmoved Mover, nor touching upon the residue of angels and gods who pride in the near-perfection of heavenly bodies.

The immovable individual – while principled and relied upon for foundational support – is often the one left behind because when life clashes with the ivory tower of conceptual constructs, not moving is tantamount to seppuku – the traditional honor-killing by disembowelment by the samurai.

That is often the problem with life, living and beliefs that one clings to; and for the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who has a view that one’s Federal or Postal career path must by necessity strive towards the Unmoved Mover, the problem is when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers often will continue to work until it is detrimental to his or her own self-interest – i.e., to the cost of one’s health.

Yes, having a paradigm of principled beliefs is important, and yes, living by a moral compass can maintain the important foundation for integrity, loyalty, uprightness and reflecting all that is good in human nature.  But when reality clashes with principle – as when one’s view of working for “the mission of the agency” or for the good of the U.S. Postal Service begins to contradict one’s medical condition, then it is time to consider preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and not worry too much about being the immovable individual whose paradigm as reflected in how Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover may – while being a stalwart of perfection – be left behind in the dustbin of history’s irrelevant collection of ideas showing the vaunted state of angels no longer believed in, and gods removed because of the errors of myths and fantasies once created to tell the narrative of human folly.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: False Positives

We demand that a “retest” be done, to ensure that the result did not have the opposite effect.  It is a linguistic conundrum that the affirmative means its negative; for, in medicine, a “positive” result is the worst of news, whereas in most every other context, it is a welcomed declarative.  But because it is a result which is not embraced with delight, we ask that it be further verified in the event that the “positive” is a false one, and we want it instead to not be a true one, and thus ask for a retest in order to see whether the second one will result in a true negative, which is the opposite of a true positive in hopes that the first positive result is a false one.

Are there such similar circumstances in daily life, apart from the medical field, where we received results of false positives?  The latter term in the phrase is misleading, precisely because laudatory declaratives are normally welcoming additions; yet, combined with the former word that essentially negates the latter, it is an oxymoron of sorts and is thus relegated to a defined field in the medical arena.

But false positive do rear their ugly heads now and again; in employment, where awards and exuberant encouragement are provided with nary a compensatory incentive, giving the impression that the company recognizes the employee as a valued asset, all the while withholding that most coveted of advancements – the “raise”.

That is surely a “false positive” that needs to be retested.

Or, of loyalty seemingly accorded by a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal worker, so long as productivity is met and the “mission of the agency” is placed on a priority basis, where long and uncompensated hours, both in physical presence and cognitive input when exhaustion from work, worries and problem solving overwhelm and consecrate; but when it really “counts”, does the concept of loyalty allow for bilateralism, or was it merely a one-way street:  Your loyalty to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, in return for a false positive?

Is filing a Federal Disability Retirement application considered a “false positive”?  Or even in an inverted sense – it is “positive” because it is a benefit which is available when (often) all other options have failed; it is purportedly “false” because it means giving up one’s career and being presented with a future with less income.

But it can also possess an inverted meaning –  of a false positive because it is an a recognition that the medical condition has come to a point where an admission must be made:  the falsity of hope in relying upon the Federal Agency or U.S. Postal Service to reward one’s undiminished loyalty these many years and decades, would result in an accommodation of the medical condition, combined with a sense of positive outlook for the future because of this past reliance.

No – unfortunately, such a false positive would surely have to be retested, and the result would be that, yes, the false positive of having the ability to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is indeed a true positive that is there to be accessed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Recognizing Problems

Why are some better at preemptively addressing recognizable foreshadowing?  Is it a genetic predisposition related to the capacity of surviving?  Like the instinctive responses of animals, is it an inherent trait that favors those who are more “fit” with such a characteristic, and thus to the disadvantage of those who do not possess it, where recognition and preemptive engagement allows for survival and thus the genetic pool favoring by dominance of avoiding the mortality trap?  Have we replaced such instinctive abilities by relegating most problems to linguistic identification and capacity to solve?

For, in the human world where language prevails and electronic communication is now the preeminent engagement of consciousness, the “problems” to recognize are no longer the danger of an approaching predator nor the oncoming storm out in the middle of the ocean (although, a burning house or a hurricane imminent if you live on the coast are still real dangers), but for the most part, language games that need modification, curtailment or adjustment in order to correct the inconvenience of social constructs that have gone amok or astray.

Yes, the furnace may break down, the water heater may have sprung a leak, or the roof shingles may need replacing; but even those, the resolution is rarely one that is initiated by us; rather, it is to utilize the mode of communication and either by phone, email or text messaging, we make an appointment for someone else to fix the problem.  Recognition of the concern was still contained within the world of language, and the physical work attended to is relegated and delegated to some strange entity in another universe.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal employee or U.S. Postal Worker to take the next step by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset – the process begins with a “real” problem:  the medical condition itself, which will not go away no matter the treatment modalities or the constant attempt to work one’s way through the chronic and progressively deteriorating situation.

Then, from the reality of the problem itself, the jump to recognizing the further concern must inevitably manifest itself – that of the incompatibility and incommensurate nature of the medical condition and being able to do all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.

Thus, recognizing the problem is the first step in resolving the issues; however, resolution may sometimes need some expertise and advice beyond what the Federal or Postal employee can foresee in the foreshadowing of approaching dark clouds.  For, not all problems are equal, and certainly not all solutions, and while recognizing problems may resolve some of the concerns, the greater issue is whether the Federal or Postal employee will have all of the information available “out there” in the netherworld of an administrative and bureaucratic morass as that of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, such that the problems one cannot recognize may be the one that defeats the solution never known.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Answering Questions

How do we come to learn how to do it?  Certainly, we come across certain eccentric individuals who defy every conventional norm, and somehow manage to appear as if they have done what otherwise we recognize as not having been completed.

Have you ever come across someone who just isn’t “quite right” – such that, when you ask a question, the tangents that flood forth and the meandering thought processes make it an arbitrary conclusion as to whether it was the specific question asked that prompted the incommensurate response, or just the mere fact of a tonal posit of a question-like query that compelled a verbal reaction, even if it has nothing to do with the substance of the question itself?

How do children learn how to answer questions?  Is it natural; is there a systematized process of acceptability; is it taught in any course with a heading like, “Elementary Basics 101: How to answer a question”; and do we presume that acceptable and normative constraints are just learned effortlessly?  Certainly, the classical educational approach of dialectical methodologies – of a question posited; raised hands, chosen orders and an answer provided; then the reinforced positive feedback by the teacher in either affirming or rejecting the response – is an approach that somewhat answers the mystery.

But what of that “weird” kid?  The one where the teacher asks:  “Is the earth round or flat?”  The kid answers:  “That is an oversimplification, as the geometrical constructs require a perspective that betrays ignorance of quantum physics, where flatness is a relative concept to roundness, and vice versa.”  Now, one may smile and wonder whether, perhaps such a child prodigy reveals an intelligence quotient beyond his age or class assignment, but all the rest of the kids would just roll their eyes about as the class bullies await for recess hour in order to beat that kid to a pulp.

But was the question answered, and to that end, satisfactorily?  Or, what if another kid, perhaps half-daydreaming, suddenly blurts, “It’s blue!  It’s blue!”  Did that kid answer it any less adequately than the first?  How do we learn to answer questions?

What if the questions are essentially legalese and incomprehensible, or of a “tricky” nature and makes one pause before moving forward?  Do questions posed, for instance, by law enforcement officials evoke greater caution (as in, “To the best of my recollection…”), and if so, why?  Is it because the stakes may be higher and the suspicion of the double entendre is always there?  Which brings us to the problem of Federal Disability Retirement applications, and specifically SF 3112A – Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

The questions posed on the Standard Form 3112A seem simple enough; but simplicity does not necessarily mean straightforward, and indeed, when a Federal or Postal employee is completing SF 3112A, it is best to go back to fundamentals and ask yourself, How did I learn to answer questions, and are these questions the type that may need additional help, because – though they may seem simple enough and not quite in legalese – there is some trickiness in the very simplicity of the query.

And it is the rule to remember, that the simplest questions require the greatest pause, where suspicion will warrant a more extensive pondering of reflective repose.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire