1. The fearlessness, humor, and outspokenness of his voice (when he speaks he just speaks his mind and he’s usually thought about what he says a great deal, so he just projects, barks it out and delivers truthful and illuminating utterances.  When he detailed how the O-Ring on the Challenger Shuttle lost resilience below 0° celcius at the Presidential Rogers Commission of 1986, he just dunked the ring in ice water and spoke this discovery.  It was the crucial key-pin discovery that explained the Challenger catastrophe, and he just opened his mouth and said it.  He didn’t conceal his words nor use trickery nor politics of any kind and it showed in his voice.  I aspire to do the same and sometimes recognize (albeit short) pronounced moments where I feel I have the same simultaneous clarity, boldness,and just naturalness of communicating as Feynman.  But his “communicational style” is not the interest with this point.  Don’t get confused. It’s the clarity, intelligence, self-integrity, and humility that he held that make his voice fearless and outspoken.  I think one could say he didn’t care about perceptions, but he was viciously committed to explaining how things worked to people. What I mean by this is if he wanted to explain the details of the weak nuclear force he would just say it like it is, no strings attached, no air of pomposity, no boasting, no bragging.  Indeed! That is the very most admirable quality of Feynman’s voice that he DIDN”T try to communicate.  See a lot of people, I guess you can bring Reagan, the Great Communicator, into this although he’s a bit of an acception being a pretty solid guy it seems.  But a lot of people try to communicate.  They focus on pronounciation and delivery and how to stand or when to say what or something and their message is hollow.  I guess it’s kind of like trying to build a house and all you do is focus on the where to put the house and the millions of details of placement and foundation etc but you never actually construct anything when you speak.  Feynman on the other hand, just seemed to think about things and then just “build the house” to follow this increasingly odd analogy.  In other words, he didn’t have an agenda under than making someone understand.  Now THAT is extremely, extremely rare.  Even people whom I met whom have that agenda, usually their’s some splinter of “I want to look smart so I’ll explain this” or ” I want to have some reputation of a good explainer” or something of the sort.
2. 2)His ability to Discover.  Feynman said  “The thing that doesn’t  fit is the most interesting!– (Feynman)” Because it means that that’s some new law of nature (or of the great grand chess game or something which he referenced as an example of figuring things out) and it menas you’re just spotted a hidden (and tip of the iceberg emerging) element of a whole other law of Physics or detail of Nature.   He talked about how he loved interpreting Russian and Mayan hierglyphics just because they were this awesome puzzle to work out.  I love puzzles because solving them is an accomplishment in itself.  ”The reward of a thing well done is to have it done”, wrote Emerson.  And Feynman’s discoveries and excitement to intellectually discover earned him man got-it-well-done rewards.
3. 3)His intelligence. The guy was wicked smart. Done.
4. 4)His adventuresome almost partying personality.  If anyone ever thought of the idea of a “Rock Physicist”, Feynman would probably fit the depiction.  He frequented a strip club now and then, played the bongoes like no other and played some excellent pranks, but still — first and foremost — held the dignified and well-qualified demeanor and hosted the cognitive abilities of a Nobel Prize winning theoretical Physicist.
5. 5)His total and utter lack of snobbiness.  He easily could have held the “I know how this works and you don’t” POV, but it he didn’t.  He told stories.  He was extremely kind (but not in the cheesy “look at my generosity” way), but in a sharp kind of way, mitigating the chances of his intelligence being exploited — of that I seriously admire as well.  He made attempts to explain these freakishly complex quantum topics to laymen.  He Shared a good laugh and was an awesome gentleman dude.

Man, this guy was just so indescribably awesome!  But I will attempt to describe.  He was a master of logic.  Things he says and describes are always clear and rock-solid in their structure and stability.  Meaning, when Feynman described something you also were getting a dose of logic, natural sciences, math, learning process-theory, and probably a dash of humor.

He was clear, pure, genuine.  The kind of person from which you could learn heaps of truly worthwhile stuff and trust that you’re in Good company.  I distinguish worthwhile learning (actually truthful knowledge of natural sciences and math) from unworthwhile learning (religion, subjective beliefs, New Age bs, most all of psychology — indeed Feynman condemned psychology as a crock, which it is — for starters) because what Feynman knew and taught – Natural Sciences, specifically theoretical quantum physics — was the undeniable truth and quintessentially, inexplicably “worthwhile”.  That’s how things worked.  That’s how and why the sun rises and sets (okay that’s more of the classical mechanics branch of physics).  But the composition of matter is the very stuff in which he explored and made breakthroughs.  If anyone thinks that kind of knowledge isn’t worthy to learn, they should get their head checked.  I guess he kind of new the underpinnings of matter and energy and as a result of that incredibly electrifying (couldn’t help the pun) knowledge, he always had that never-pompous, always humble, but joyful look in his eye of “I know how this works.  I figured it out, and if there’s still more to discover, I’ll enjoy figuring that out too.”. Indeed,  if there was any person who directly personified Emerson’s quote of getting a job well done, it was Feynman.  I don’t think Feynman saw things as work or play.  Of course not.  He couldn’t.  That capacity of not distinguishing between work and play is something I do (but of course on a much less advanced caliber than Feynman) and it definitely puts you at a different rhythm or cadence with the wolrd (most whom of which lives for the weekly paycheck and operates as a brain drone living paycheck to paycheck never bothering to discover why they don’t atomically sink through the floor when the particles of the floor and their own feet are mostly empty space).

With Feynman, you knew you were getting getting the essence of clarity.  Not just mentioning his schooling — Caltech, MIT, Princeton, and more — because that wasn’t Feynman, it was Feynman’s clear-thinking mind that got him to and through all those schools.

He was the antithesis of “stuffy” or snooty.  He was like a partier with nobel-prize winning physicist mind or physicist with a strong partier itch.  But maybe those aren’t as mutually exclusive as they may appear.   I think the very act of discovering some of the things he disvovered on his own has got to be one of hte greatest “thrills”, an apex of elation, in any sense.   Consider the following:

Like how the Mayan’s coded their numbering system based on the revolutionon venus every 580 days.  Feynman unraveled that just by scrutinizing and making some calculations and interpreting the symbols of an ancient mayan tab.  He archaeologically decoded a Mayan mathematical system on his own! Now, granted, I’m sure proper archaeologists had already decoded the system before him, but Feynman just set out and did it on his own.  That’s kind of awesome guy he was.  He didn’t compartmentalize his work and discoveries to physics; he was the renaissance man who discovered and worked out puzzles on bits of everything.  That’s fascinating stuff! Deciphering an ancient hierglypnhic that a bunch of villagers in huts (not intending to relegate Mayans at all) composed over two thousands ago?  That’s pretty awesome.  But I guess you can take that to an infintesimally greater magnitude when you consider the laws of physics, “composed” over 13 billion years ago, were some of the discoveries with which Feynman worked.  So the age — indeed you can’t get any more ancient and enduring than the duration of the Universe! — of the knowledge with which he worked combined with its veracity is awesome.

Indeed, he took a biology class one summer (instead of his typical drive across the country), and discovered something about bacterial macrophages and viral replication.  His curiosity was his genius and of that I take after him.  I often look at my life and think “this doesn’t make sense” how could I have just studied this (accounting or acting or english poetry, for example) and now be into this (natural sciences, physics, and mathematics).  For me the answer is usually I discovered a previous interest or curiosity is a fallacious crock of shit and decided to focus on something that had more veracity, integrity, and truthfulness in it.  But that curiosity is what motivates me and continually serves as a bearing for what’s worthwhile to study and learn.  So seeing a guy who’s massively successful and his curiosity is what indubitably stabilizes his success is definitely encouraging.

Not Doing Something Often ==  Can’t Do Something.

He volunteered for a hypnotist once.  The hypnotist hypnotized him to do various things.  One of which was circling the auditorium before returning to his seat.  (Let me just interject on the topic of curiosity and discovery.  Take the word “auditorium”.  If you deconstruct it you get the root word “auditory” and realize that yes an auditorium’s purpose is room in which things, most likely people, are made to be heard.  So an auditorium — atleast a well build and designed one — will have optimal auditory acuoustics in mind.  Common sense when you deconstruct it, but still a cool and miniscule (but worthy) mini-discovery. )  So, Feynman went back to his seat and planned to boycott the hypnotist’s design.  However he found himself going along with it and circling the auditorium first.  His comment on his own actions was brilliant: “If you can do something but decide not to, it’s the same thing as saying you cant”.

Have I done this and is it interesting?

My extrapolation of Feynman’s quote “If you can do something but decide not to, it’s the same thing as saying you cant” is as follows and is quite honestly, quite good.  ”In a sense that’s very true and distingishes a talker who validates and supports his words with what he does, his actions, and someone who kind of just says things.  I can relate to that a lot with something like a marathon.  I think something like a marathon is one of those things someone says they can or can’t (people usually say they can’t) do but what matters is actually doing it ore not.  Have you done this?  Not can you do this? Is the question I think.  In other words, asking the question of something that holds your interests “Have I done this and is it interesting?” Prompts you to simply check your past and your own curiosity.  Is xyz action in my past?  Does xyz action pique my curiosity?  If you get a “no/yes” (/No, I haven’t done it and yes it’s interesting), then it may be useful to actually start trying to do it!  That’s exactly what I did with a marathon.  I had no idea how to get in shape to run that insane distance, but I hadn’t done it and it was interesting and seemed worthwhile, so I did it!  Learning about physics is something that I have not done (with the exception of classical physics employed making booby traps as a kid and physics is very interesting and worthwhile, so I am doing that.  If you ask yourself the question “Can I do this?” you automatically short-circuit yourself and your brain trips up and you go into “evaluating your capacity” mode.  You don’t want to  be in “evaluating your capacity” mode.  Trust me.  I’ve been there.  What happens is “evaluating your capacity” mode branches into to “understanding your identity” mode, which then spirals into “comprehending your life” mode, which then becomes….You get the picture.  Asking “can I do this” brings in capacity and capacity is determined primarily by what you have already done.  So skip the “evaluating your abilities” downward-spiralling nonsense, and simply ask “Can I do this and is it interesting?”!

Feynman is unquestionably a hero of mine.