This question can inspire levels of fury beyond my understanding, which is why I couldn’t have casually posed it on Reddit. This seems like a more good faith kind of crowd so I’ll ask it here.
This is a question I’ve put a lot of thought into for myself since 2020. I’m interested in my ideas being criticized and perhaps to criticize the ideas of others (Note: Not criticizing people or their character. Only ideas). I’m going to post my own answer in the comments.
This is very similar to the development I’ve experienced, thank you for sharing the process itself. Our brains naturally chunk information, so the use of schemas to understand abstract concepts I think is completely intuitive. As you pointed out though sometimes a schema can turn out to be an over-simplification which falsely indicates a topic is less complex than it truly is. It’s interesting to look over all of the cognitive traps we’re vulnerable to which we could never escape if we didn’t admit to ourselves we could fall into them.
Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming at times, but at the same time always exploring even seemingly understood questions makes life a lot more exciting!