A friend — Joan Baez, the folk singer, though her fame meant little to me, not being of the generation through which she made her rise — offered me a guest house near where I’d gone to high school. In exchange, I’d care for her chickens and goats. I had set out to face the unknown and instead found myself marooned in paradise.

I was Robinson Crusoe when I was trying like hell to be Daniel Defoe.

I decided to turn inward. I started a strict reading regimen of eastern philosophy and spiritualism — the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, the more formal Zen and Taoist texts. I assumed a moderate daily routine of a simple diet, reading, and walking. I was hardly a budding Buddhist. Meditation put me to sleep. The asceticism I admired just seemed unreasonable for someone with my interests and plans. Still, I practiced what I could.

But here’s the contradiction. I turned so far inward that I lost all touch with selflessness. I was completely egocentric. My care for the animals became hurried and careless. Rather than commune with the chickens — led by my nemesis, the proud and stern rooster, Mohammed — I found them to be a nuisance. They sensed my elsewhere-ness and they reviled me for it. Same with the goats. Joan would go into their pen and stand among them while they bounded about, climbing downed trees, hopping up and down the terrace — half showing off, half pure elation. When I went in, it was a nervous romp and they would work their way to the lowest terrace, away from where I was.

Let’s make it big…

My relationship with the animals spiraled downward and I shirked the work rather than embraced it. I was aware of the contradiction and it ate at me. I had spent months thinking about the enormity of the unknown, trying to shed daily routine in the name of discovery and growth. I was too young, selfish, and shortsighted to see that the farm chores and that expansion were one and the same. All of the time I had my nose buried in books of infinite wisdom, I was looking for a path to simple happiness. But when I put the book down, I didn’t practice.

Joan noticed. I think she noticed first that her animals weren’t getting the care they needed, and second that I was in no frame of mind to give it. She simply relieved me of the duties and allowed the rest of my stay to be unconditional.

I felt relieved at the time — finally free to slip into total atrophy of responsibility under the guise of spiritual rebirth. But I later learned that unreciprocated generosity — when you are the unreciprocator — is a difficult thing to live with.

I have never known a generosity stronger or more unconditional than what I found in that friendship. Some reading this might think, what a little prick he was. I wouldn’t argue otherwise. But Joan did not see it that way. She just let me be, and trusted that the lesson would arrive on its own schedule.