Once upon a time there was a 40-something who decided to go back to university, full-time. Every day, she attended classes and was fascinated, furiously scribbling notes, learning so much.
One day, the professor’s slides included a drawing that depicted scissors snipping genes, “Farmers must buy seeds every year because seeds are genetically modified to produce plants that produce sterile seeds.” Her hand stopped writing, her eyes stared at the scissors, and her mind burst from its shell, “What?! How did I not know this and how could humans do something so horrible on purpose?!”
Because of that, the lens through which she saw the world completely changed, something like The Allegory of the Cave. Because of that, she evolved from an information gatherer to a person who sees perspectives and transfers knowledge.
One day, she was shoved into a giant abyss, recognized it as a rapidly enlarging, dangerous, manufactured knowledge gap, and clawed her way up and out to do whatever it takes to help others climb out, and to close the gap so others won’t fall in.
And the moral of the story is: don’t run with scissors.