I can't agree with you more. Knowledge gained through active research when you encounter a problem will just stick. The danger of passive consumption of knowledge is it occupies your bandwidth with nothing and debilitate your autonomy. I get more tangible results by searching for answers when I have an obstacle, reading around the topic a bit, applying it in practice, if it works, repeating and thinking about ways to improve. The feedback loop is pretty useful too and you might gain new insights along the way and it will become your own knowledge.