Just finished reading "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" a memoir in vignette form from Richard Feynman - Nobel Winner for Physics and crazy-mother-fucker.

He's the kind of man I've met (at least in part) in Math a few times. He's the kind of guy who understands the world very analytically and has no patience for arguments or people who don't have logical reasons for doing what they do. He's incredibly intelligent and because he doesn't get extraneous stuff (like the arguments of some philosophers who use overly technical words instead of just speaking clearly and some artists).

But what really stuck out for me was the way he really went for everything. He didn't know how to draw, so when he met an artist he really liked he asked him to teach him. And he practised constantly, took extra lessons and eventually got good enough to draw people's portraits. And it's like that with everything he did; with the physics obviously, but with everything else too, drums, safe-cracking, biology.

A great line from the book is "Of course I would like to have done it at home, and I don't doubt that you could meditate and do [hallucinate] it if you practice, but I didn't practice." This is regarding duplicating an experience he had in a sensory deprivation chamber. For him it is his great failing that he didn't practice.

Having read the book, I now really want to do something - anything - and do it really well. Practising all the time and to really be a well rounded and interesting individual.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like they can't do anything. You'll be inspired.

It's also INCREDIBLY funny and his complete lack of social grace gets him into many a ridiculous adventure.