Within Reach

A reflection by Ayman Fouad Abdelgawad

I find the height of the box more revealing than any promise an organisation might print beside it. Nobody has prohibited a suggestion. The invitation remains perfectly intact. Only the means of accepting it have become unreasonable.

This is the difference between offering a process and making participation possible. Time, confidence and the ability to endure repeated explanations can become invisible stepladders. Those who possess them may wonder why everybody else stays silent. What interests me is how readily that silence becomes evidence of satisfaction. Before congratulating ourselves on the absence of complaints, we might ask whether the box is within reach.