{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blog-post-js","path":"/2026/its-like-what-we-imagine-knowledge-to-be/","result":{"data":{"site":{"siteMetadata":{"title":"Sarah Avenir"}},"markdownRemark":{"id":"a6629398-629a-5de5-ae09-8a016870c1b9","excerpt":"If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,\nthen briny, then surely burn your tongue.\nIt is like what we imagine knowledge to be:\ndark, salt, clear, moving…","html":"<blockquote>\n<p>If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,\nthen briny, then surely burn your tongue.\nIt is like what we imagine knowledge to be:\ndark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,\ndrawn from the cold hard mouth\nof the world, derived from the rocky breasts\nforever, flowing and drawn, and since\nour knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.</p>\n<p>—Elizabeth Bishop, from “At the Fishhouses”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Today, I finished the prototype for the <a href=\"https://publish.obsidian.md/theselftaughtlife/202-Contemplation/1a+Notice+your+contemplation+path\">Contemplation Path</a> in the <a href=\"https://publish.obsidian.md/theselftaughtlife/The+Self-Taught+Life\">Self-Taught Life</a>. This is probably my favorite path, because it’s about learning for its own sake, not for anything else it can give you. It is the core of what my personal scholarship practice looks like, every day.</p>\n<p>There is just one path left; the Path of Acceptance. This is the path you take when it’s not possible to take action and change a difficult situation in your life right now, and it’s not helpful to center personal scholarship in your days because you just…can’t. This is a path of healing and of being with yourself. The prototype will likely take me 2 or 3 weeks to finish, because it was the least developed when I stopped working on it last year.</p>\n<p>So if you need to <a href=\"https://publish.obsidian.md/theselftaughtlife/The+Self-Taught+Life\">start at the beginning</a> and listen to your life, or if you got to the end of listening and you realized your life is calling you toward a <a href=\"https://publish.obsidian.md/theselftaughtlife/201-Action/1a+Define+your+action+path\">Path of Action</a> or a <a href=\"https://publish.obsidian.md/theselftaughtlife/202-Contemplation/1a+Notice+your+contemplation+path\">Path of Contemplation</a>, all are ready for you. I’m so excited to share them.</p>\n<p>Thank you for being here,</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://sarahavenir.com\">Sarah Avenir</a></p>\n<hr>\n<p><em>In the spirit of <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/POSSE\">POSSE</a>, this was also published at:</em></p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://buttondown.com/sarahavenir/archive/its-like-what-we-imagine-knowledge-to-be/\">This Newsletter is for Friends</a></li>\n</ul>","frontmatter":{"title":"It's like what we imagine knowledge to be","date":"March 24, 2026","description":null}},"previous":{"fields":{"slug":"/2026/the-great-reluctance/"},"frontmatter":{"title":"The great reluctance"}},"next":{"fields":{"slug":"/2026/what-mankind-cannot-live-without/"},"frontmatter":{"title":"What mankind cannot live without"}}},"pageContext":{"id":"a6629398-629a-5de5-ae09-8a016870c1b9","previousPostId":"9e6abbb8-e8ae-5bbf-98b3-e8f3911ad810","nextPostId":"e3330c40-b55b-5171-80ec-c9bc0f01d4d0"}},"staticQueryHashes":["2841359383"]}