Surely you must be joking!

I am reading "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman", and the book has influenced me/my thought process more than I would like to admit. I am always amazed at the "timing" of the books/articles that I happen to read..Somehow, what I am reading has a direct or an indirect meaning/implication on what's happening in my life at that point of time. This has amazed me for quite some time now, and I have even tried to make use of it in a very weird kind of way! :)

Now,it might come as a surprise to most ppl who knw me, coz really it defies any rationale!! ok, this is what I tried, when I was in my I PU( I guess)- I started reading a book and got this idea that with any luck, the book might contain answers to the questions I had at that point of time... It wasnt as simple as the same questions plaguing the protagonist, so this is what I did - I thought of a question, then opened the book at random. I was very very surprised to find, what was there on that page somehow correlated with what I was looking for.... I got a kind of kick out of this, and did this whenever I felt like and whichever book I was reading at that time. AND IT WORKED!! The only constraint I followed was that I shd really like the book, and its a genuine question...

Thats my story. I stopped doing that a long ago, and I just remembered it now, when I was reading this book, "Surely...Feynman" . The book per se has no preaching, no morals, no serious amt of physics either! Its just a collection of incidents, as narrated by Mr. Feynamn himself. It gives a rare insight into his psyche, and I dunno if I shd be saying this, but many times while reading the book, I felt EXACTLY the same way as he does! :) ( and no,its not abt any theory in physics!(that's expected anyway, right? afterall he's a nobel laureate :D))

There is one more thing that I realised while I was reading this book - my definition of a "maverick" changed. I always associated it with someone who 'did' things the way he wanted, without confining himself to any kind of 'norms' ( well, i just realised, it fits the definition of a 'rebel', equally well! :)) but I realized, a maverick can be someone, whose 'thoughts' are his own! U can be classified as a maverick, if u 'react' to a situation, completely based on what u feel and not on what anybody else feels either abt the situation or ur part in it.

And, since then, I have tried to see what I do, given a situation - do I react the way I do, coz i feel so? or do I react to others' reactions?? well, its not been easy, mind u ! just the observation is quite a difficult exercise, and am not yet through with it.
But looking back at a few incidents, I feel, it makes things a lot simpler if u just think as if there's nobody else who ll be influenced by ur thoughts/action. I resigned from my current job, today. And the reactions of ppl to it have been as varied n different as the number of ppl itself! Some feel sorry for me ( which I HATE!!!!) , some feel this is a hasty decision, some others feel I shd ve atleast got another job, b4 resigning....all this makes sense, but I am happy with what I am doing! Now, I have to CHOOSE between reacting to what these ppl ( who r close to me, and whose opinions matter to me! ) feel, and acting as I feel. And trust me, its quite a fight!! :D

So, coming back to where I started from- "Surely...." , there is a third outcome of reading this book, I am going to dust my copy of " Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick" and read it at leisure.. :) I am really really looking fwd to this! Reading physics, without having to worry abt any exam, and just to know/learn more!
hee :) I love physics!