He was anti-authoritarian to the core, a prankster, and undeniably brilliant. But copying the first two doesn't make you the third. Picking locks and doing physics problems at the strip club won't help you become the next Feynmann. He could get away with that stuff because he was uniquely brilliant. Also, being obviously-smarter-than-you is tiresome, even in people who can legitimately cop that attitude. Feynmann himself got on people's nerves sometimes, but we should also remember that his cheeky anecdotes aren't all there was to the man, and he had a lot of good working relationships.

I'm curious how much that has to do with being around students as much as Feynmann's influence.

> Picking locks and doing physics problems at the strip club won't help you become the next Feynmann.

Those also sound a lot like stereotypes of the smart wannabe-cool (or wannabe-smart cool?) people in films and TV. Just look at the awful stereotypes of smug-smarter-than-all young guy in Goodwill Hunting for example. Or any movie where people write equations on glass with a marker.

That said, I'm not around physics grads much so I'm not expert. Although the one physics grad I know well fits into your categorization well. Nothing worse than a "quirky intellectual" without the intellectual part down.

If that's all the people you are referring to took from his books there was probably no hope for them anyway, at least at that stage in their life - it does sound like it's just immaturity you are talking about.

I think there are some good lessons for a young person in his playful curiosity about the world & the anti-authority message was mostly about not taking things for granted & not to be afraid to push further for a more complete answer and question things just because they have always been done a certain way.