Social Media and St. Anthony The Great.

"When the same Father Anthony meditated on the depth of the judgment of God, he asked, “Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? And why are some poor and others rich? Why do wicked people prosper and why are the just in need? He heard a voice answering him, “Anthony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your benefit to know anything about them." -Second Saying of St. Anthony The Great.

Social Media, as a concept, is a novel idea. It is a way to stay in contact with others, to share ideas, to share a bit of ourselves with those we may not communicate with otherwise. But this is, at least for me, not how I use it.

I find myself wandering through my endless newsfeed, shuffling between emotions of annoyance, being humored, being numb, being upset, being moved. And none of them seem to mean anything. The shuffle is almost instantaneous. I find myself wondering at what is being posted, wondering why this person posted it, the motives, the inner sneering that develops within me, the haughtiness. I begin to take something small that may have happened that someone did, some slight and it builds when their posts come up in my newsfeed.

Or better yet, my newsfeed was something I used to try to make look perfect, or I was intentional at displaying a certain side, a certain angle of my life. I wanted to show my knowledge, my spiritual life, how full my life was. I wanted to make some splash. Or maybe I wanted to do nothing at all but waste time. "Harmless." Is anything ever truly so? Every decision necessitates the sacrifice of every other one of the infinite possibilities available to you at any given moment in time. They may appear small but they are there. I am haunted by the words of a Russian theologian, Pavel Florensky: "I believe nothing is ever wasted." 

Is everything then always working towards the strengthening of an unseen current? And which current do I find myself? I believe that God calls to us in a similar manner as he did to St. Anthony in the desert. He says to us the same thing when we wish to binge on the lives of others, post selfies, scroll through curated snippets of others' lives. Keep your attention on yourself. Maybe we exhaust ourselves with the lives of everyone else. What a fear, to come to the end of life and realize that the only thing that exists in us is everyone else, at least what we think is everyone else.