the one and the many

I really like the concept of the one and the many, or the one over the many.  

This summer I traveled to Costa Rica with a group from Loyola, and one place we visited was a school called Earth University.  At the front of the school there was a sign that said EARTH in giant capital letters.  We played a game in which we tried to find as many words as possible using the letters in the word “earth.”  We found words such as “ear”, “heart”, “art”, “eat”, “hear”, and several more.  I thought it was neat that all of the words we found in the word "earth" were representative of things that are found on the actual earth.  "Earth" was the one, and the words we found constituted the many.  The one and the many was demonstrated both in the spelling of these words, and in the actual things they represented.

Another way to think of the one and the many is in terms of one's feeling a city.  If you think of a town or city you've never been to and know nothing about, your feeling of that city might be considered in terms of the one.  You think of it as one name, as one dot on a map.  But when you think of a town or city you've lived in and actually experienced, you probably think of much more than just a small dot.  When you're there or even just when you think of its name, it feels like more than just a single entity.  You think of people, music, streets, festivals, parades, schools, trees, restaurants, sidewalks, signs, sidewalks, and much more.  You think of the experiences you have had there, and how the city has affected you.  You feel it in terms of the many.