I'm interested in particle physics but still I don't see any motivation to do it. How can I determine I learned something, how can I compare my progress to othe

I'm interested in particle physics but still I don't see any motivation to do it. How can I determine I learned something, how can I compare my progress to others. It just feels like I'm doing a captcha for them. They should licence a form of StackOverflows's system which basically uses a skinner box approach which is very addicting and still rewarding if you get some positive benefit out of it.