A Benedictine once put it more or less this way to me: community life causes the monks to round off each other's sharp edges over time. A solitary life is gene

A Benedictine once put it more or less this way to me: community life causes the monks to round off each other's sharp edges over time. A solitary life is generally not good for people. Check out "Into Great Silence" for a film about life in the Grand Chartreuse, the motherhouse of the Carthusian order. I recall reading some years ago that it is one of the few (only?) orders in the Catholic Church that has never needed reform. Carthusians only talk to each other once a week I believe -- interesting monastic order. There is also a relevant classic work on the Jesus Prayer so used by the East: The Way of a Pilgrim. It's about a man who is determined to find out how to pray without ceasing. He becomes a solitary mystic is how I would describe it.