I like the concept of divergent and convergent phases of life. This reminds me of a professor I had that said the arc of knowledge went "from thin to thick, then from thick to thin." Meaning that you started a course with no knowledge, filled your brain, then needed to put this all down on one piece of paper ("cheat sheet"). This stuck with me.
That rings true for me, but with a slight adjustment; once you have fill your brain with knowledge you can then condense it to the simplest model, from which the rest can be derived if needed again.
