Thank You Professor.

Richard Feynman in the classroom.

From my early teen years, I was a very curious child, and of course physics or chemistry were very interesting for me. I would spend hours playing with two magnets and trying to understand why they act the way they do. I would have very creative and innovative ideas about how these magnets could be used, and my brother used to joke when we speak today, “You see, they invented the levitating train like you were saying — they stole our idea!”

But unfortunately, going to school demolished my curiosity. Teachers with low-paid jobs, who do it but don’t like it, had to teach what someone else said, following a system that failed to provide what the school system should provide: critical thinking, curiosity, and play while learning. This is even more evident today.

In my teenage years, I would be more in the schoolyard than in the classroom, and surely, when hormones peak, it is very difficult to interest such a monster like I was to sit, listen, and watch what the professor is doing — and not look over his shoulder in search of a girl or be lost in imagination with some similar fantasies which involve girls.

Sometimes I think my non-learning in the years when I needed to learn cursed me, so I stay always with a book and am never able to stop learning. Every day, learning became part salvation and part lifelong journey which never finishes. This revelation about the curse, or my inner joke, came to me when I found myself again going to school in Italy for photography.

In this journey, one of my professors from whom I would learn could be found in the book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! — and hours of his lectures online would again spark my curiosity and teach me such wonderful stuff.

And maybe it was not his Feynman technique which helped me the most, but his way of explaining and making interesting topics, which if read just like theories would be annoying and make learning much harder.

His book gives very clear ideas of how he was as a person, how much alive he was working on top secret projects, like the Los Alamos and lockpicking safes, which could possibly get him in trouble, but he was playing, watching life like play.

This is a blog post to say thank you to him and publish the letter he wrote to his wife.

Thank you, professor Feynman.

October 17, 1946

D’Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart.

I know how much you like to hear that — but I don’t only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing.

But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures.

When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.

I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you.

I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.

PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.