The Kind of Work Solitaries Should Choose

Everyone, therefore, who perseveres constantly in this watchfulness will truly fulfill what the prophet Habakkuk expresses so plainly: “I will stand upon my watch, and go up upon the rock, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I may answer to him who reproves me.” How hard and wearing this is, is shown very clearly by the experience of those who live in the desert of Calamus or Porphyrion. They are separated from all the cities and dwellings of men by a longer stretch of desert than the wilderness of Scete; they go seven or eight days’ journey into the depths of that vast wilderness and only just reach their hiding places and cells. Yet because they give themselves to farming there and are not in the least confined to the cloister, whenever they come to these squalid regions where we live, or to Scete, they are troubled by such harassing thoughts and such anxiety of mind that they cannot endure the life of the cells and its peace and quiet. They are like beginners and men who have never given the slightest attention to the exercises of solitude, and at once they are driven out and forced to leave, as if they were inexperienced novices. [a]

For they have not learned to still the motions of the inner man and to calm the storms of their thoughts by anxious care and persevering effort. Toiling day after day at work in the open air, they move about all day long in empty space, not only in the flesh but also in heart, and they pour out their thoughts into the open as the body moves here and there. And so they do not notice the folly of their mind in longing for many things, nor can they check its aimless wandering. Since they cannot bear sorrow of spirit, they find continued silence unbearable; and men who are never tired by hard work in the country are beaten by silence and worn out by the length of their rest.