There’s a bloke on TikTok called Sidney Raz whose channel is all about useful tips and tricks for life—often with a DIY or other similarly practical focus—with an emphasis on how he didn’t find out those things out until a bit later than might perhaps be normal. ‘Here’s something I didn’t know until I was in my thirties’, is how he introduces his videos, with the implied message being that he’s stupid for not getting this in hindsight really obvious thing. He’s got millions of followers, which is only partially because of the occasionally really useful insights he gives, and mostly because of the relatability of the content and message: We’ve all been there, struck dumb by realising something that we were sure we should’ve realised long, long before. I can definitely relate, having had way too many of these late dawning awakenings in my time—and, I’m sure, with many more still to come. Reddit had this topic on its mind the other day when it asked the question: ‘What’s a common piece of knowledge you found way too late?’ Some of these are facts, some are more in the direction of life knowledge, but you can check out the full thread here, and below are some highlights: