I loved going to the library’s giant shelf of encyclopedias and picking one at random and flipping through the pages and skim reading.
The books were heavy and had a distinctive smell, and occasionally someone tore out a page and then that was just lost knowledge.
If there was a speicific question, Librarians were essentially our search engine, you’d ask them a question, and they’d think on it, maybe even ask a couple follow up questions, and they’d tell you to come back in a little bit or even a couple days, and when you return they’d hand you a list of books to find and checkout/read to find your answer.
It wasn’t fast, but it made finding answers and factoids its own adventure.
You’re 21, there is still much to be learned and experienced and healed. You have a lot of time to figure yourself and the world out.
Give yourself the time!
I can understand on some level the difficulties you face, I’m not sure if there’s any advice I can give that will translate, but my best is:
You don’t have to have it all figured out by now.
Make mistakes, take chances, be wrong. Give yourself the flexibility and oppertunities to understand what you are and are not. Just trial and error your hobbies, friends, activities, and jobs - eventually you’ll target or even accidentally bump into something that works for you.
It takes a long time to build yourself into something you like. But eventually it does happen, and its rarely into something you predict.