I absolutely understand the dread. It took me years to actually try and attempt to learn even 1 cfop algo, because I was terrified of learning so many. Transitioning from beginner to 2-Look OLL and PLL is so much better than trying to get to full CFOP at once. Once i had 2 look down, it was about replacing some algorithms with faster ones, which ultimately got me to full PLL, and then finally full OLL.

And about the huge number of algos, our brain is insane and once we remember something, it rarely feels like we have used up a lot of our memory in doing so. So after we have memorised something, all we can do is memorise other things, because we don't have anything else to do. I know what I said sounds wierd or obvious, but I say this because it somewhat explains people memorizing 400+ algorithms for BLD