October 04, 2026

At Least I'm Doing Something

I don't believe I can really do without teaching. The reason is, I have to have something so that when I don't have any ideas and I'm not getting anywhere I can say to myself, "At least I'm living; at least I'm doing something; I am making some contribution" - it's just psychological.

Feynman said this in an interview collected in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, explaining why he never gave up his undergraduate teaching duties at Caltech even as his research reputation grew. By then he had already won the Nobel Prize in Physics, yet he kept returning to freshman lecture halls, reworking how to explain the simplest ideas. He wasn't chasing praise or new discoveries in that classroom — he wanted the steady, tangible feeling that he was contributing something real to other people's lives. It's a reminder that contribution doesn't require a breakthrough; showing up for the unglamorous work in front of you counts too.