Confucius may have had it wrong

when does knowledge become a burden? when does it sit on your shoulders like an obese gargoyle, hunching over your left shoulder, demanding to be carried the width and breadth of the solar system -- and when is it like that best friend you decide to piggy-back out of sheer want and need? when do you trudge its limbs across the ocean while yours tire and gnarl, and when do you elbow it off and leave its sore ribs to drown?

i'm not talking in that pesky way knowledge can be: neck vertebrae popping out, eyes tiring, and deadlines looming on your staples-purchased agenda. i'm not discussing studying or the mire of being a student in the 21st century. i'm talking about knowing. knowing things. when does the overwhelming awareness of abuse and injustice start to take from your mind rather than add to it. when do the realizations and the read news articles start to harness your ability to make a change rather than fuel your motivations to "be the change you can see". is there a point to give-up or is there a stage of no-return that i've so eloquently walked across? is there ever a time it takes from your humanity rather than adding to it; making you realize this age of information and your position as a upper-class WASP in North America could be the best and worst things to happen to the flesh of your soul. the cage around your heart. it's not as resilient as you were once told.

it's a fine tight-rope to walk on, knowledge is. i'm confused if knowing about all the inner workings of this world is good for the human. i'm wondering if anything in this world is good for the human at all.