Baffling, Cloistered Bliss

A question that baffles me most is why some men and women, at the peak of youthful vibrancy, opt to exchange the glorious glee and pleasures of mundane freedom for a life of somber contemplation? What is it in the mute adobe walls of cavernous hallways, dungeons and catacombs of ancient abbeys and monasteries that lure them to a voluntary monastic exile, a life of deafening quietude? How can they seem, or be, happy tending secluded gardens and barns, or kneeling in candle-dimmed prayer in the doldrums of deep meditation, with each ego dignified in humility, grateful, still laced with childlike awe?