To me the most amazing thing about Feynman was his enthusiasm for relatively mundane things such as the Rio Carnival, stripclubs, the bongos, painting and the fixation for going to Tuva which is a place forgotten by both god and men.
You'd think a guy who accomplished the things he accomplished would find it harder and harder to become enthusiastic about stuff, because of the effect of the hedonistic treadmill.
Somehow I think his biggest accomplishment was his ability to slow down the hedonistic tradmill.
As I recall the stories, his playing of the bongos wasn't exactly mundane; if anything, he was an expert at establishing eccentricity as a personal identity.
I mean, c'mon.....with all due respect for bongo players...reaching excellence in that field is also mundane as society doesn't exactly put bongo players on a pedestal
What do you mean by this? did he have an unusual way of playing the bongos/learning the bongos or something? (or do you just mean because playing the bongos is something slightly unusual?)
I think, Heinlein in "Have spacesuit - will travel" mentions something to the tune of "math is worse than peanuts". Integrals could be holding attention quite well - just check Youtube channels with explanations of everything, or MOOCs which have rather robust audience.
You'd think a guy who accomplished the things he accomplished would find it harder and harder to become enthusiastic about stuff, because of the effect of the hedonistic treadmill.
Somehow I think his biggest accomplishment was his ability to slow down the hedonistic tradmill.