What are the challenges that knowledge comes with?

Although unexpected, knowledge comes with quite a number of “challenges”. Here are a few.

The never-ending rabbit hole. Every answer points to several more questions, and it feel like there is no end in sight. Even in specialized areas, like one programming language, you can feel like you got the hang of it after the first few weeks. But the more you learn, the more you realize just how many things you still need to learn. Even professionals with 30 years of experience still claim there are many aspects of their own field of expertise that they don’t fully understand.

The limitations of the human brain. There are so many things happening all over the place, and not just in the present, but also that happened in the past for a ridiculous amount of time, that there simply isn’t enough storage room to remember it all. Eventually, learning new things will cause some of the older ones to fade from memory and have to be regularly checked again.

Not everybody is thirsty for knowledge. The more you learn about a specific topic, or about things in general, the smaller the pool of people with which you can discuss these things becomes. The more niche your expertise is, the lower the chances that you can relate and talk to others about it. Sure, you can look for people with similar interests on the internet, but as a real-life, day-to-day interaction, you can feel like you don’t have that many things in common with others. That is, besides striking up random fun facts at dinner with your friends.