Before the Voice

A parable for the systematically silenced

Before the Door of Expression stands a gatekeeper. A boy approaches, eager to share his thoughts. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot admit the boy at the moment. The boy, remembering how confidently he once spoke, asks if he will be allowed to enter later. "It is possible," answers the gatekeeper, "but your thoughts must first be evaluated."

Since the gate leading into Expression stands open as usual and the gatekeeper steps to one side, the boy bends down to peer through the entrance. When the gatekeeper sees this, he laughs and says: "If you are so eager to speak, try it. But note that I am powerful. And I am only the lowest evaluator. From hall to hall, judges stand at every door, each more critical than the last. Even the third of these has standards so high that I cannot meet them myself."

The boy thinks this strange—surely expression should be natural, available to all—but when he looks more closely at the gatekeeper's red pen and disappointed frown, he decides he had better wait until his thoughts improve.

The gatekeeper gives him a chair and tells him to listen instead. There the boy sits for years. He makes many attempts to speak, but the gatekeeper always finds fault. "Mediocre," says the gatekeeper to every offering. "Terrible," he says to most. "Perhaps acceptable," he says to the boy's very best efforts, "but why waste everyone's time?"

The boy, desperate to earn the right to speak, offers everything he has. The gatekeeper accepts it all—his confidence, his natural voice, his belief that his thoughts matter—saying with each taking: "I do this only to help you improve."

During all these years the boy watches others speak while he remains silent. He forgets there were ever other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only barrier between himself and being heard. But something worse happens: he begins to believe the gatekeeper is right. His thoughts aren't worth sharing. His voice doesn't matter. He exists to listen while others speak.

Years pass. The boy becomes a man, successful in ways that should prove his voice has value. But the gatekeeper's judgment has become his own inner voice. Even when he achieves great things, even when his expertise could help others, he cannot speak. Not because he fears punishment—but because he no longer believes he has anything worth saying.

The man grows old, surrounded by evidence of his competence, yet still silent. Others ask why he doesn't share his knowledge, why he doesn't teach what he's learned. He wants to tell them, but the words feel foreign in his mouth.

Finally, near the end, he realizes the truth: there was never a real gatekeeper at all. Just a system designed to convince certain people that their voices didn't matter, that their thoughts weren't worth hearing, that they existed to consume others' ideas rather than contribute their own.

The door was always open. But they had convinced him he had nothing to say.