From this page:
Monasticism (from the Greek monos, meaning "single" or "alone") usually refers to the way of life–communitarian or solitary–adopted by those individuals, male or female, who have elected to pursue an ideal of perfection or a higher level of religious experience through leaving the world. Monastic orders historically have been organized around a rule or a teacher, the activities of the members being closely regulated in accordance with the rule adopted. The practice is ancient, having existed in India almost 10 centuries before Christ. It can be found in some form among most developed religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, the Sufi branch of Islam, and Christianity.
Apparently, almost all the world’s religions have developed some sort of monastic institution. Why is this? Here’s a simple theory: Perhaps these religions were meeting a felt need. Maybe a certain percentage of people, within any given society, are simply best-suited to a life of poverty, chastity, and retreat from society. Such people make good monks, but probably turn out to be rotten coworkers, rotten parents, rotten drinking buddies, and/or rotten spouses. If so, then monasteries perform a very simple function in society: Monasteries provide these monastically-inclined people with a place to live the sort of life to which they are best-suited.
If every society contains some such people, then our own society must contain some of them. But unlike most societies throughout history, our society no longer provides any sort of monastic institution to accommodate their needs. Catholics, of course, can join the priesthood, but my understanding is that nowadays, being a Catholic priest almost invariably means being assigned to a parish, and thereby being "immersed in the world": Shaking hands after Mass on Sundays, going to church socials, organizing charity raffles, etc. Protestants, I would guess, provide their clergy even fewer opportunities for monasticism than Catholics do. And of course, if you are not religious, then your chances of living a monastic life are dimmer still.
Some people go off to live by themselves as hermits in some place like Montana. Every now and then, one of these people blows a gasket and does something weird or horrible, like sending bombs through the mail. I suspect that had they been born 500 years ago, the Montanan hermits of the world would probably have become monks instead. They might have been happier that way.
E.G. 
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