The World of Thinkers

The modern world is a mess, or so I’m told the second I open my browser. Thoughts, solutions, essays, art, and quotes scroll past as the orange bookmark icon glows steadily on the left side of my screen. I should be writing, not this – the chapter of my thesis sits open on another tab, a document that hasn’t gained any words in weeks. Instead, I’ve opened a window into this world, and the lure of other people’s thoughts and certainty, stacked with a low-grade desire to stay relevant, moves my fingers to scroll, almost unconsciously.

“One function of the local church,” a man writes, “is to kill our main character syndrome.” It appears alone, surrounded by white space, the number of likes growing underneath in agreement. His thought, delivered to the world in Spectral serif font, lives here, in this universe, for the day, or maybe it only lives for several hours; no one really knows. The algorithm will ultimately decide. Several of my friends have liked it; if more of them do, the typed words may live longer; they may even travel to other feeds and far places of the world. Individual thoughts codified in screens, flowing through time and space, uniting minds.

I click the button and see everyone he subscribes to. Nothing is private. I see the people he follows and can follow them instantly; I can unfollow instantly if they don’t suit me.

I click back, uninterested.

A photo of a desk appears; it is somewhere in the world – I don’t know where, but a stack of books with spines placed unnaturally outward, sun cascading over the seemingly haphazard scene, tells me the person reads and studies theology. The little circular icon tells me he is a man and his name. He is reading Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Boersma, Rowan Williams and Alexander Schmemann. The stack is large, daunting, over 20 books, some are large commentaries. “These books have been important to me. I’ve been reading this slowly over the last six months,” he types to this universe.

“Six months,” I find myself repeating out loud, followed by “slowly.” 

Art and ancient churches flicker by, an incursion of Christian images: the Good Shepherd, the Annunciation, a modern rendering of Pentecost, an orthodox icon of Jesus. It’s like walking through an art gallery's gift shop, glancing at a spinning rack of postcards. Each sacred image shrunk and flattened into a small square, one more square within the square of my laptop screen, gone before I can even place it in my memory.

I stop at an image I’ve never seen before – magnificent spires, a golden dome, a city that looks impossibly beautiful under a halo of flickering lights. I hesitate, then realise none of this is real. “This is the future we must choose,” the caption proclaims; 3100 hearts already agree.

I notice there are no stories of horrendous killings or unexpected pregnancies; there are no complaints of vandalism or discussion of drugs; there isn’t even quintessential neighbourhood gossip. This universe, this community of thinkers, seems devoid of such base, perhaps banal things, as if they do not even take place.

“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny,” a Lewis quote wanders in front of my eyes.

“You and God are friends,” a woman says in a video of herself. She looks furtively, with careful awe, out of a stained-glass window; the frame contains only her side profile; she is the only thing on the screen but remains slightly out of focus, fading into black. She holds back tears, reciting spoken verse about difficult seasons. She pauses for dramatic effect while continuing to look through the stained-glass window, never moving her head, never making eye contact, as if we have caught an unscripted glimpse into her subjective mind. Her pause turns into a soft smile, and she continues on about God’s grace. Ten thousand people have viewed her post.Lewis appears again: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.” 

The next post my eyes encounter says, “Look, Henri Nouwen wrote about me again.” Followed by an image of a short passage from his book.

I see an article written by someone I trust. I click on it and am impressed by the content. It’s an excellent essay, well-cited and deeply thought out. I ponder his exegesis and insight for a minute, considering personal connections to my own life and then, with one click, find myself back on the homepage. I keep scrolling, mechanically moving through text and thoughts, thoughts and quotes. The poignant essay is already too many posts back to find again, and my brain is growing weary. No one is hungry or sick; no one is even having a bad day in this world. The word sobbing and horror catches my eye, as I almost scroll past. I gently nudge the screen back up to read the post that the algorithm has attempted to bring to my attention. The orange check mark by her name tells me she matters here, and since over forty thousand people have engaged with it, my curiosity heightens. I encounter a reflection written entirely in lowercase.“the absolute horror of becoming self-aware is that you lose the right to be a victim in your own life. you are sitting there, sobbing on the floor, but you’re also standing across the room watching yourself do it, completely aware of every choice that led you there. you can’t even have a good, clean tragedy anymore because you are always the accomplice.”

The comments stack underneath: “flawlessly articulated wow,” “so real”, and “The thought is sobering yet freeing.”

I sit for a moment, staring at my screen. There are no selfies in the world of thinkers. Text and thought rule this space, accentuated by a colour palette of brown, dark green and grey, with rounded corners and equally spaced white gaps. It’s monotonous but soothing to the eyes.

Another CS Lewis quote appears, this time with the admonition: “You will not regret the 20 seconds it takes to read this banger quote by C.S. Lewis.”

It’s a white image with a serif font, very subtle, zero flash. Once again, thousands of likes sit beneath. It’s a fairly lengthy quote without any context or reference to what book or lecture it’s from – that detail seems irrelevant here.

My dog barks at me; he has brought his favourite toy and laid it at my feet. He doesn’t realise my mind is in another universe. He paws at my chair, wanting my attention, frustrated that I haven’t turned to look at him. 

“This is how we will fix the world” trails off as I close my screen.