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Push the envelope

To push the envelope is to move into unchartered territories, to get out of the rut and try a less travelled road, to go an extra mile and, hence, discover a brave new world.

One who pushes the envelope is one who thinks outside the box.

This may sound too romantic. Let’s examine the other side of the coin then. First of all, to venture into the unknown involves risks. Second, the brave new world may not be so wonderful once we get used to it. As Mark Twain once remarked, it was wonderful that Christopher Columbus found America, but it would be even more wonderful if he had missed it. If you think from the point of view of American Indians and African slaves, you’ll understand Twain is not entirely off the mark. If we still have a primitive American continent, inhabited by 10 million nature loving American Indians, it’d be just as wonderful, if not more so considering what we currently have – a commercial world dominated by man-made machines such as the Apple gadgets.

I’m not of course against technical innovations – I just want to be reminded from time to time that technical advances not only bring about good things, but also the bad, nuclear weapons, for one example.

Which is why some people say no matter how you push the envelope, it’s still stationery – can’t miss the pun, stationery being pronounced stationary.

Still and all, where our mind is concerned, it’s important to keep pushing the envelope, so that we won’t be always dreaming yesterday’s dreams and talk yesterday’s talk.