When I was a kid, I read a Peanuts strip where Marcie asks Charlie "Why the long face?" He looks at the huge pile of books in front of him and replies "The more I learn, the more I know what I don't know."
I have (among other things) a degree in Mathematics. Math is one of the few subjects where everything you learn very obviously builds upon everything you've learned before. In fact, many professors take pains to connect the dots between seemingly disparate subjects like topology, linear algebra, and multi-variable calculus (to name a few). And, that's one of those amazing beauties of math as a subject of study.
The flipside of this feature is that as you learn each new fact, you are aware of how much of an inverted pyramid mathematical knowledge is. You learn fact A and that opens the door to facts B, C, and D. But you haven't learned those facts yet! You just know you don't know them. And, once you know that facts B, C, and D are out there, you become vaguely aware of the facts that build on those.
In other words, the more you know, the more you realize you could know.
When I was high school, I would never memorize facts - I never saw the point. All I cared about was knowing that a fact was available and where it can be found. (Yes, I love the library. Why do you ask?) While I sucked at biology (why memorize phyla when Google knows them?!), I know exactly where to find information and, more importantly, what information is out there to find.
Maybe that's the best way to learn.
