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Dostoevsky explains the monastic way
“Very different is the monastic way. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet they alone constitute the way to real and true freedom: I cut away my superfluous and unnecessary needs, through obedience I humble and chasten my vain and proud will, and thereby, with God’s help, attain freedom of spirit, and with that, spiritual rejoicing!”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Painting by Michael Henderson
I love that book. What a great teller of stories, Dostoevsky is absolute brilliance.
I hear you man. When I encounter brilliance like that--not just in writing but anywhere--it inspires me, but at the same time, for a short split second, it makes me want to give up doing whatever it is I'm trying to do because I know I'll never attain that level of luminosity.