“Illuminate the world”? I’m not sure I know what that means.
I mean, I can dig into the bare meaning of the words. Perhaps there’s inspiration in that.
Illuminate – light up, brighten. From “lumen” which is (probably) Latin for “light”. Or a special typographic calligraphic technique especially used in Bibles. An illuminated text is one with amazing large first letters on a page, decorated and painted in intricate detail.
The world? Does that mean the globe? The Earth? The ~8000 mile diameter pear-shaped mass of nickel and iron and various trace elements on which we live? A speck of rock and dirt and water and air, and not much of those last two in comparison to the rest of it. I mean, check out this picture, showing the relative size of all the water on Earth, and all the air on Earth, compared to the planet as a whole. Seems like such a tiny amount to me.
Or maybe just my world. The world in which I live. Sellwood, Portland. The #70 bus. The dark black and red smoke-filled booze-enhanced party that is Devil’s Point. The beige basement in which my work desk sits. My friends, my family. The dark apartment I live in. The warm soft bed in which I sleep. My world.
Light up the Earth? That’s the Sun on the dayside, and the Sun reflected off the Moon (along with a tiny amount of light from distant stars) on the nightside. And all that artificial light, of course.
Illuminate the Earth? That’d be like gilding the lily.
Illuminate my world? My day-to-day work-a-day world, apartment to work to apartment again. That’s what I try to do by going to the strip club, or going out with my friends to coffee shops or music stores or live music or bookstores… I try to brighten my life every day. I try to smile at people, talk to pretty women, make people laugh.
I’m just rambling here. I’ve been thinking about this post idea for a day and I fear I’m not getting it.
That’s what I’ve got.
Kevin, Day 4: Would you be any different if you had a different name?