hammered gold

After the gold has been heated and hammered, it becomes suitable for use whether functional or decorative.  Knowledge too, cannot be absorbed like water into a sponge.  A better metaphor than the sponge would be coral, because the internalization of knowledge is active not passive.  The coral grows by selecting elemental aspects from its environment for accretion; also it expands as a network in the same way as long term potentiation expands dendrites into new interconnections.  The transmission of knowledge via apprenticeship remains fresh and avoids hidebound ossification because each generational iteration of transmission is transformed into a format relevant to the intrinsic interrelationship between, the master, the student, and the situational context that surrounds the teaching process.  This process is not a process that produces cookie cutter replicas in a series.  Negative space is disconcerting, people are naturally gregarious so the absence of company engenders fear.