When Monk bought the current family house, the back yard was a mess and a broken sprinkler was pouring out water around two plum trees instead of spraying. The broken sprinkler wasn't shut off a few months later. That year one of the plum trees bore over 100 juicy plums. So many that there was not enough time to harvest them.
Later that summer, due to a home upgrade, the construction workers turned off the electricity at the main panel. The automatic irrigation system was reset and did not get turned on again after one busy year of home remodeling. By the time Monk found out, the Fruitful Plum Tree was dying.
Monk tried to save the trees in the backyard. The following year, to his surprise, plants didn't grow as many leaves as they should. Instead, most plants made their last ditch of effort to flower and bear fruits. Lemons, oranges, pear, peaches, and plums. They all gave their best. Amidst his deep depression, Monk observed how nature reacted after a long year of drought. Even unconscious plants wanted sex from flowering and reproduced from bearing fruits, in spite of its own questionable survival. The most primal motivation of all nature is to survive and reproduce. Without the sex drive, species would have simply disappeared on Earth. This observation was the moment of awakening and acknowledging his own biological needs.
The fruitful plum tree bored a few last plums that year. The following year it was dying. Monk tried his best to revive the plum tree. But it was too little and too late. Monk did not know exactly when the plum tree died. He did not know exactly when his spiritual self died either.
What was left was the other plum tree that did not bear any fruits. What was left was only his physical self. Right before his spiritual self died, he went to Red Cross and donated blood at the highest frequency at every eight weeks for more than two years. He decorated his office with all the Red Cross donation stickers until the moment that he lost the emotional capacity to care for himself or others. Like the fruitful plum tree that bored so many fruits right before death, his spiritual self tried to bear good fruits as Bible described right before his death.
