Wikipedia says “According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy of an isolated system never decreases; such a system will spontaneously proceed towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the configuration with maximum entropy.” Maximum entropy = maximum disorder. 

It seems that systems created by human minds have the opposite tendency: an isolated system proceeds toward minimum disorder. The simplest and least disrupted life — the secluded life of the ascetic — perceives the most perfectly ordered reality. 

People with complex, routinely shocked and disrupted lives perceive a chaotic reality that overflows a mind’s capacity to contain and order. Usually we think of the ascetic life as more concerned with the transcendent, but this could not be less true. They are interested in protecting the mind as its own place, farthest from the disruption of transcendent reality through its myriad obstructing agents, chief among which is the disagreeable and detested neighbor. But to approach the transcendent with all of one’s heart, mind, soul and strength cannot be done without also approaching one’s neighbor.