2952.
Monastic institutions both then and now have a very high tolerance for
the occasional character whose personality and actions over the years
become erratic or even psychotic. The monastery in some ways is like a
prison, and if in prison a man commits a crime what is to be done with
him? He is already in prison.
2953.
There is solitary confinement, and solitary confinement is the
punishment in one way or another that is administered to anyone who
lectures strangers at bus-stops, informing them of things they have no
need to know. And it doesn’t matter how urgent the speaker’s motivation
may be.
2954.
Actually the more urgent a stranger’s unwanted advice is, the more
rapidly solitary confinement is brought to bare on this sort of
activity. By “solitary confinement” I obviously am referring to the
social ostracism that is experience by all of those individuals who go
around arguing with themselves or strangers.
2955. So it was with the monk who talked to himself. The only adverse effect for him was a certain loneliness that did nothing to ameliorate his condition.
Images 2952 - 2955 by, Duchenne de Boulogne: 1862 French
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