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  • We've come to see living on our own or in a small family unit of our own as a key step in growing up;

  • it's the dominant image we have of adult existence.

  • So, monasticism, which involves unmarried people working and living together in highly organized communities,

  • can seem very marginal and odd.

  • We may not have anything particularly against monasticism, but it can seem just very unusual,

  • something that might work for a very few individuals without being relevant to the lives of most people today.

  • At its core, monasticism puts forward the bold thesis

  • that people can actually lead the most fruitful, productive, and happy lives

  • when they abandon the idea of coupledom and the single family dwelling,

  • get together into controlled, very organized groups of friends, have some clear rules, and direct themselves towards a few big ambitions.

  • The modern world insist that we'll always be happier in a small home, on our own or with one or two very special people,

  • but this ideal can be deeply problematic, leaving us occasionally looking around for some sort of an alternative.

  • Even if we're not planning on setting up a secular version of a monastery anytime soon,

  • the history of monasticism deserves to be studied for the lessons it can yield about the limits to modern individualism.

  • A site near Athens, 300 BC

  • The philosopher, Epicurus, buys some land just outside the city of Athens and invites friends to come and live with him.

  • It's the world's first proper commune based around philosophy.

  • Epicurus has come to the view that we tend not to be very happy because we overrate the importance of three things:

  • romantic love, having lots of money, and the enjoyment of luxury.

  • The point of this commune is to help people avoid these mistakes and to focus instead on friendship, simple pleasures, and cultivating the mind.

  • In the commune, everyone has a room and there are common areas downstairs and in the grounds. That way, the residents are

  • always surrounded by people who share their outlooks, are entertaining and kind.

  • Children are looked after in Rota, everyone eats together, one can chat in the corridors late at night.

  • It's a very succesful arrangement and a great many other epicurean communities are founded.

  • The movement flourishes for almost 400 years.

  • The big move that Epicurus makes is that people should live together

  • not because they happen to be related by family ties, or were born in the same geographical region

  • They should do so because they share values and ideals.

  • Epicurus proposes that we need the presence and assistance of like-minded people able to free ourselves

  • from the usual social preoccupations and get on with the sincere tasks of our lives.

  • Monte Cassino, Italy, 529 AD,

  • Inspired by the example of Epicurus, Saint Benedict establishes

  • his first monastery halfway between Rome and Naples.

  • It's still there, although it had to be heavily rebuilt after it was damaged by allied bombing in 1944.

  • Benedict writes an instruction manual for his followers with a simple and emphatic title,

  • "The Rule."

  • In his book, Benedict lays out strict regulations about how to run a monastery; he details:

  • what to eat, when it's OK to talk and when you have to be silent, who has to do the cooking, washing up and gardening

  • Everyone has to take turns: when to go to bed and went to get up, what sorts of clothes to wear

  • and what kind of haircut to have.

  • The list can seem like a huge denial of individual liberty, but Benedict's contributions to the history of monasticism

  • is his faith in the benefit of extensive, explicit and detailed rules to which members voluntarily agree.

  • Benedict believes that only under regulated conditions can the best potential of people be harnessed.

  • He works on the idea that although high level of personal freedom sounds like a lovely idea,

  • it's not in fact an optimum condition for most of us

  • because we have a fatal tendency to veer towards dissipation, distraction,

  • and wasting our time.

  • North Yorkshire, England, 657 AD;

  • St. Hilda of Whitby, one of the most powerful and accomplished women in the early history of England,

  • founds a monestary.

  • In her role as the head of the monastery of Whitby, she becomes a very senior administrator,

  • runs a large agricultural enterprise,

  • is a management consultant to visiting kings and princes,

  • and has an impact as a leading educationalist.

  • And she does all this while being noted for her good temper.

  • Of course, she's unmarried.

  • It's not that because she's a nun,

  • she isn't allowed to get married,

  • and so has to make the best of her work opportunities without a supportive home-life--

  • the line of thought runs the other way around.

  • She's able to have a stellar career and achieve so much for the community

  • because she's free of the demands of relationships and domestic life.

  • Being a nun means she's supplied with meals, laundry, and heating

  • without having to organize everything for herself.

  • She can be astonishingly productive.

  • We tend to associate monastic life with religious devotion,

  • but people like Hilda suggest that there are many benefits of monasteries,

  • which are not really tied to religion at all.

  • Most crucially, the monastery removes the problem of finding a work-life balance.

  • Within the monastery, work and life are not really two separate things--

  • you're always at work.

  • It's an attitude summed up by the followers of Saint Benedict

  • in one of their key mottoes,

  • "Laborare est orare:

  • to work is to pray."

  • That is, what you're doing when you're digging the fields,

  • administering the accounts, deliberating policy, or involved in contemplation

  • are not opposed activities to be weighed up against each other.

  • You can fully immerse yourself in your work, which when it's meaningful, can be the highest of pleasures.

  • Kingdom of Bhutan, 1692:

  • the establishment of the Takstang Palphug Buddhist monastery.

  • Like Christianity, Buddhism has a long standing interest in communal living.

  • The lofty and rather inaccessible location isn't an accident.

  • The point of going to a monastery

  • is to avoid the distractions that might take one's attention away from what's really important.

  • The Buddhists are acutely aware of the problems of distraction;

  • what they call, "The Monkey Mind."

  • This is one of the recurrent themes around monasteries,

  • so locating the monastery far away from the city, and in a setting where nature appears at its most impressive,

  • is a careful, strategic ploy.

  • It's using geography and architecture in a struggle to get us to focus on the right things.

  • Monasticism knows that human beings are pathetically prone to distraction.

  • It's almost comically easy to get us to stop concentrating on anything serious,

  • or even a tiny bit challenging.

  • But collectively, we've been very reluctant to take serious steps to address this mania for distraction.

  • It's almost shocking to imagine what one might be able to do where our attention's not always wandering off.

  • Buddhism's leading figures are prepared to accept that asking for prolonged, non-distracted attention

  • means making huge and specific adjustments.

  • That's what monasticism is for.

  • Trinity college, Cambridge, England, October 1911.

  • The philosopher, Ludwig Littgenstein, enrolls as a student at Trinity College, Cambridge

  • to study under the great and eminent professor, Bertrand Russell.

  • Trinity College is, like most of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, founded on the plan of a medieval monastery.

  • It isn't centered around a relationship with God,

  • but it does have a belief system.

  • One focused on the idea of academic work.

  • Fellows of the college, such as Russell,

  • lived a communal life and they have to be unmarried in order to admitted inside the community;

  • married academics lived elsewhere in Cambridge.

  • The arrangements are an admission

  • that certain kinds of jobs, especially intellectual and creative ones,

  • are not well-aligned with the demands of family life

  • or even of running your own household.

  • This academic monastery means you can socialize mainly with people

  • who are involved in the same kind of work as you--

  • who can offer you sympathy, help and advice

  • and will never nag you about the laundry.

  • The sneaking suspicion that someone who does your job might be harming their talents

  • by emptying the bins or making the beds might, the college system argues, just be true.

  • Russell and Wittgenstein weld together revolutionized 20th century philosophy.

  • San Francisco, 1966.

  • The first hippy communes spring up in the Haight-Ashbury district of the city.

  • The hippies go in for a very particular style of communal living, involving:

  • beards, lentils, chanting, free-wheeling attitudes to sex, suspicion of technology, and dislike of tidiness.

  • They so gripped the public imagination that their way of doing things

  • becomes what living together looks like to most people

  • when they think of what it might mean to live in a commune.

  • Almost by chance, it comes to seem as if

  • being interested in shared property, collective responsibility, and mutual assistance with your work

  • means you also have to be interested in dancing naked and sitting cross-legged on the floor with large a beard.

  • It hence becomes hard to imagine a secular monastery with non-hippy values.

  • For example, a commune devoted to entrepreneurship, traditional manners,

  • or a strong enthusiasm for clean design and modernist architecture.

  • Many options for communal living still lie before us.

  • Monasteries and communes have not exhausted the possibilities,

  • even if their examples can act as sources of ongoing inspiration.

  • When we try to live together with just one special other person,

  • the experiment often runs aground.

  • We get bored, sexually frustrated or constrained.

  • We often blame the other person for this,

  • and rush off to repeat the experiment with someone else.

  • We'd be wise to see that the institution of romantic marriage

  • can place some intolerable burdens on otherwise very good people,

  • who would hugely benefit from other ways of structuring their time and their laundry responsibilities.

  • As an alternative to the dispiriting domestic bickering of certain couples,

  • it may be time to revisit the fascinating examples of early modes of monastic and communal life.

We've come to see living on our own or in a small family unit of our own as a key step in growing up;

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