Mere Orthodoxy October 3, 2026 4 min signal 2026-10-03

Outsourcing the sun

Archived text mirror, captured for personal reading when the Signal ran. Formatting is approximate — read the original at the source.

Photo by Mario La Pergola / Unsplash

I'm painting buildings in town and I want dramatic light and shadows in my compositions.

So here I am waiting for sunny weather, driving around town at different times of day until I find the right time for a north-facing house to cast its shadows to my liking.

I could take a picture in any lighting and have AI change the light source. It would work well enough. But then I wouldn't be driving this morning with the real sun in my human eyes.

I'd miss the glow of the spring grass around the gravestones in the early morning. I'd miss the warmth of high noon and the serenity of sunset. I would miss all the things I see along the way to finding what I'm looking for.

So I drive around and take pictures.

But if I were a real artist, I'd sit outside and paint from life during the short window when the lighting is right.

And if I were a real person, I would walk instead of driving. I'd only bring what I could carry.

If I cared about authenticity, I'd only use pigments found in plants, not made in a lab.

If I wanted a deeper connection with my art, I wouldn't use a brush– only my fingers. And what about the paper? I'd make it myself.

Which parts of being human am I willing to give away?

It feels fine up to a certain point. Anything we grow up with feels normal. But is this current normal what we need?

Anyone can tell you walking is healthier than driving. For one, the odds of dying in a collision at seventy miles per hour drop to zero.

Sometimes I walk barefoot in the rain to take out the trash. I used to walk barefoot everywhere when I was a kid.

Now we have to call it grounding and attempt to prove with scientific research that it's beneficial.

Why don't we let intuition tell us what we need? Maybe intuition is broken. Maybe we should let our children tell us– but we might have broken them, too.

Did Adam till the ground in Eden with his bare hands? Are all these machines just tools, like garden rakes?

This time it feels like something more than that.

But that's how old stodgy people have always reacted to innovation.

There is always some stick-in-the-mud warning us not to lose our humanity.

Is that reaction rooted in an intuition we ought to pay attention to?

A question I've heard asked:

"If you could take a pill that gave you all the nutrients you need so you didn't have to eat, would you?"

Sometimes I might– if I have important things to do, or if I were deep in the middle of a project.

But not every day.

I would miss eating cherry pie filling out of the can. I would miss taking the time to chew fresh bread.

But do I want to walk naked and barefoot to a location I like, and paint with my fingers and pokeberry juice?

(I used to call them paintberries before I knew their name)

I couldn't paint a house, only a shelter made of fallen tree branches.

So instead I take the car. I take the picture. I take the hit to my authenticity.

But there are only so many things I'm willing to give up; sunlight isn't one of them.

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Kimberly Joyce Williams is a painter, potter, and writer who lives with her family in southern Illinois.

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