We live on a planet bursting with millions of species, thousands of languages, an endless parade of weird inventions, and enough historical drama to make every soap opera ever look tame. The internet now delivers all of it to you instantly, anywhere, any time.

And you?
You’re over here knowing three recipes, the names of maybe four constellations, and the complete lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The Buffet Problem

Life is an all-you-can-eat buffet with a million dishes, and your brain walks in with a dessert plate. You can only carry a little, so you pile it with whatever caught your eye first and leave 99% of the options untouched.

Spoiler: This is why you know about the latest celebrity meltdown but have zero clue how your water system works.

Your Brain’s Pathetic Storage Space

Your head is not the Library of Alexandria—it’s a messy studio apartment where the landlord is your short-term memory and it throws out most of your stuff every night.

• Limited slots: You can juggle maybe 4–7 “chunks” of info at a time.
• Learning takes forever: Mastery needs thousands of hours, and you’ve got Netflix to watch.
• Forgetting is built-in: Your brain’s like, “Nah, you don’t need to remember that fact about Mongolian throat-singing.”

How We Decide What Sticks

The stuff you do care about follows the “interest trap”:

1. You notice something.
2. You try it a little.
3. It feels good—success, approval, dopamine hit.
4. You want more.
5. You get better at it.
6. Boom—now you’re a “birdwatching person” or “car guy” or “knows way too much about medieval torture devices for some reason” person.

Everything else? Straight to the mental trash bin.

Culture’s Giant Funnel

We’re not free-range explorers of knowledge—we’re fed a pre-packaged menu by algorithms, education systems, and our social circles. That’s why everyone knows a little about whatever viral thing just happened but no one’s out here talking about 14th-century Persian navigation charts. Not because they’re boring, but because they never hit your feed.

Breadth vs. Depth

You get two choices in life:

• Breadth: Know just enough random stuff to keep up at parties.
• Depth: Master a few things and ignore everything else.

Most of us pick a little of both, which is why you can explain exactly how to reset a Wi-Fi router but have no idea where your nearest fire hydrant is.

Welcome to Your Small World

In the end, your personal “world” is just the few topics you decided to go deep on, plus the shallow trivia that passed in front of your eyes recently. The rest of reality? Never even makes it into the apartment.

So yes, the universe is infinite. But your curiosity?
That’s a studio apartment with bad lighting and a suspicious smell in the corner.