Growing up, we had a full set of World Book Encyclopedias in our house. Row after row of matching alphabetized books and heavy enough to require intention when I pulled one from the shelf. And I used them most days. At dinner each evening, all five kids had to share something they learned that day. For me, it often meant going to one of the books for some random fact, interesting bit of geography, or a new word. It wasn’t learning for purpose.

Each year, we received a single update volume. One year’s worth of discoveries, events, and ideas, distilled and contained in one annual edition. The pace felt manageable. Knowledge expanded, but slowly enough to absorb.

Looking back, it’s striking how different the relationship with information feels today.

We don’t receive one update a year anymore. We receive thousands a day. Articles, posts, podcasts, newsletters, research summaries, think pieces, and “must-know” insights arrive constantly before we’ve had time to integrate what came just before.

The problem isn’t that we lack information. It’s that we’re surrounded by it.

What once fit neatly into a bookcase now feels like entire libraries being delivered at once, with no clear index to tell us where to begin or what matters most right now.

And yet, many people I talk with feel more stuck than informed. Making sense of it, or filtering it productively, feels increasingly difficult. Progress feels heavier than it should.

That tension is easy to misinterpret. We assume it means we’re behind, not focused enough, or missing something important. So, we do what the system encourages: we search. We Google. We open another tab. We look for the next idea that might make things click.

Sometimes that helps. Often, it just adds more noise.

Today’s tools are powerful, but they reward speed over synthesis. Searching replaces sitting with the question. Consuming replaces integrating. Knowing more becomes the goal, even when what we really need is clarity.

This is where friction shows up.

Not the kind of friction that signals failure, but the kind that tells us something about the conditions we’re operating in. When there’s no pause between inputs, even meaningful ideas struggle to take root. Nothing is broken. The pace is simply off.

Many capable, thoughtful people describe the same quiet experience:

They know a lot and yet, things feel slightly out of sync. Decisions take more energy. Learning doesn’t always translate into momentum.  

That feeling is often treated as a problem to solve quickly. But it might be more accurate to see it as information in itself, a signal that coherence, not content, is what’s missing.

Coherence isn’t about doing less or opting out. It’s about creating conditions for sensemaking where what we’re taking in, we can actually connect. Where ideas relate to each other. Where learning informs judgment instead of competing for attention.

Encyclopedias didn’t give answers automatically. You didn’t open one without a question. And once you found an entry, the work wasn’t finished. You had to connect it to other ideas, make meaning across pages, and decide how it fit into what you already understood. Today, we have more answers than ever but fewer built-in moments to pause, synthesize, and decide what matters now.

Perhaps that’s why so many people feel overwhelmed not by the complexity of their work, but by the volume surrounding it. Not because they don’t know enough, but because there’s too much coming at once.

So instead of focusing on next steps, it may be worth pausing with a simpler question:

Where does life or work feel harder than it should not because you don’t know enough, but because there’s too much coming at once?

Sometimes, noticing is the first step toward coherence. Realizing that what we need may not be more information, but more space for what we already know, to settle.

The encyclopedias didn’t rush understanding. They assumed learning took time, connection, and interpretation.

Perhaps that slower posture is worth remembering — not as a return to the past, but as a reminder that clarity rarely comes from accumulation alone.