There’s a line someone shared recently which made me pause for a minute. It’s in Proverbs 25:2:
"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the honour of kings to search out a matter."
There’s something here about why certain knowledge resists easy acquisition. And why some truths only reveal themselves to those willing to dig.
Have you ever been in a situation where you got an answer immediately without having to dig for it? It’s becoming increasingly common with AI, but our desire for knowledge within reach has been accelerating for centuries.
New knowledge falling into your lap can feel great when you don’t expect it - but becomes vapid and transient once you do. If anything, you quickly become frustrated at any information that takes time to buffer; mysteries that are slow to unfurl.
Research is like this. Relationships are like this. It’s easy to feel foiled when something doesn’t click immediately.
But think about the reverse. Do you remember the sensation of mulling through a tough problem until it cracks open? Of searching for a thought or emotion, sifting your soul, wracking your brain, searching your shelves, until it became clear?
It’s euphoric in contrast. But the magic goes deeper than the surface revelation. Hard-won revelations actually improve you in the process.
How many things do you learn, recall, encounter, discover, when trying to understand why your partner has a different opinion on something than you? Or when you’re trying to find a particular note or old journal entry?
How well do you come to understand Microsoft Excel when you have to test a few different buttons and functions until it finally works the way you need it to?
The things you bump into along the way enrich you—both at the time and in the future—unless you’re too addled to notice.
The treasures of the hard path
There’s a depth of resonance which doesn’t exist on the easy path - where the answers are waiting for you to stumble into them. The depth comes from the scaffolding of mental connections you build while digging. If you navigate the territory on your way to finding treasure, you’ll know the lay of the land. You can find the same reward again in future, and have hints about many others.
I once lived in a house, not too far from my current one, and within 5 minutes walk of a train station. Every day I walked straight to the train station for my commute. And straight to the store for my shop. Straight to the gym to work out. Everything was quick, precise, and within reach.
It was only during the COVID pandemic, when I had no work to commute to, that I finally decided to explore my area. And suddenly the world opened up to me. I found shortcuts. Other stores. New parks. Strange quirks. Beautiful trees and rambling woods. It’s only when I gave myself room to explore that I discovered the hidden treasures right next to me.
If you Google something right now, an AI will give you the answer in seconds. It’ll probably be right. But you’ll forget it in days, and you’ll be none the richer for it. Knowing an answer is not the same as understanding it.
Knowing that E=mc² is not the same as understanding what Einstein understood. The formula is the destination; the understanding is the journey. And the journey is where the transformation happens.
Renaissance courtiers practiced sprezzatura – the art of making difficult things appear effortless. But the concealment was the point. The visible ease only impressed because observers sensed, without quite seeing, the extraordinary effort beneath. If the effort were visible, the effect would vanish.
The charm of a person who can recall beautiful poems and plays from memory is understanding the devotion which grounds such easy recollection.
This cuts against our instinct to make everything accessible, to remove friction, and to optimise for ease of consumption. Sometimes friction is where the value lives.
Often, difficulty isn’t blocking you from an insight – it’s what creates the conditions necessary to receive it.
