Feynman's wobbling plate: how to recover from burnout

"So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever." The full acceptance of burnout seems important. ie, rather than cling to old ideas about who you are and what you want, at…

One point that isn't directly mentioned is that he was able to turn the 'wobbling plate equations' into a Nobel Prize because he had such a wide breadth of knowledge to draw from, and probably had a habit of drawing parallels between what he's doing and other things within that breadth of knowledge. He wouldn't have even thought to make the parallel between the wobble and how electron orbits move in relativity if he didn't already have a good understanding…

This is why sometimes the best way to solve a problem is not to directly solve the problem, but just make an attempt to discover more about the problem. The best example to study to in this case is the P Vs NP problem. I never understood how people can spend years trying to prove P=NP or P=!NP. Unless you already know the answer to question, to begin with a goal to prove it either way is not a wise…