Everyone should read the collections of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman and I was reminded of this two days ago when talking to a potential candidate for an actress in the short I’m planning on shooting who just happened to be reading a collection of essays by Albert Einstein.
But what really reminded me of why you should read about Richard Feynman is this article on National Review Online by Catherine Seipp.
A quote from the article:
From that quick conversation, Feynman found himself the inadvertent owner of three patents. Here he is, years later, in a letter explaining why he declined an offer to leave Cal-Tech that would have tripled his salary:
The reason I have to refuse a salary like that is I would be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do — get a wonderful mistress, put her up in an apartment, buy her nice things…With the salary you have offered, I could actually do that, and I know what would happen to me. I’d worry about her, what she’s doing; I’d get into arguments when I come home, and so on. All this bother would make me uncomfortable and unhappy. I wouldn’t be able to do physics well, and it would be a big mess!
Very much in the same vein as the wisdom of self-awareness/self-check expressed by a hitchhiker/panhandler in a recent book I read on American Nomads:
He got a puppy to keep him company, and because he figured a puppy would also bring him more sympathy for rides and money… and he was very right. In a New Mexico town that puppy got him so much attention outside a Denny’s that he was able to make around $200-$300 per day… that kind of money kept him in town, renting motel rooms and getting drunk. It was affecting his lifestyle and he was getting trapped. So he left that town and headed to places where it would be harder to make that kind of money.
He also annually gives all his gear away so he can reaffirm his ability to start from scratch with nothing, to practice the skill in case his stuff actually gets stolen.
That’s living a pure philosophy.
The book is “American Nomads : Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders” by Richard Grant
I could make $200-300 a day if I had a puppy? I like puppies so that wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe you throw in a kitten and retire in a month.
That’s genius!
There are many animal lovers in this world. I can say from experience that walking, sitting, standing with any kind of animal will eventually draw hoards of people to you, like flies on elephant dung. Not saying all of the attention is wanted, needed or warranted, but that it happens.