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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “Our reason to exist is to push the envelope.” My comments: Sounds like a mission statement of a trail blazing high-tech firm. To paraphrase: We want to challenge conventional wisdom and go beyond the limits of current knowledge and know-how. Our sole purpose is to test the unknown and bring about products that are brave and new. In short, we will never stop innovating. Or something like that. “Push the envelope” is the phrase to learn. The common envelope is that which conceals a letter. But an envelope can be anything that envelops – which covers something up thoroughly and completely. Last week, for instance, Beijing was enveloped in smog. At any rate, to push the envelope is to wiggle and push from within in order to get out. Originally pushing the envelope is a mathematics term, but never mind that. It’s enough to know that the envelope is a metaphor for the status quo, for existing circumstances, for conventional ideas and wisdom that control our mind and thinking. To push the envelope therefore is for us to stretch the limits, to go beyond the pale, so to speak, the pale being a fence that, figuratively speaking, closes our body and our minds likewise. To push the envelope is to try to break through the old mould in the same way a worm breaks out of the cocoon, before flexing its wings and taking to the sky. | 
