Most authentic

Turning pages in the book by Szalay as our Airbus 320neo climbs out of Copenhagen, I start to get slightly nervous for the workshop that awaits me tomorrow. Though nominally about abundance versus sufficiency, it is pretty clear that I am the only one representing Team Abundance and one of the few non-Italians attending. As much as I am used to being the Star Trek mascot, all those midsummers spent at the Breakthrough Dialogue have reminded me that other roles are possible, and that I much prefer being the cautious voice rather than the techno-evangelist.

Regardless of how it goes, Italy is somehow always memorable, like that night I spent in a shared flat in Florence back in December of 2009, listening to Italians arguing for hours whose mother cooked the best food and whose regional cuisine was the most “authentic”.

Still, approaching the Alps, I order a tapas box with that lovable koala-shiraz to calm my thoughts. Taking a picture of my food, I was reminded once again why Karen Blixen did not have Instagram: not to unnecessarily commodify her own aesthetic and, at least, to maintain the impression that nothing was curated.

Clearly, everything does not have to be a “varudeklaration”, and like Ester Blenda Nordström, I have already done my fair share of aura farming. Being meta-conscious of it all makes me briefly question why I keep writing this blog in the first place: is it simply a testimony to a world that is being lost, both on a personal and a political level?

Asked anew about how I think we should save the world, I shrugged at the prospect of even opening up that box. But maybe some things remain true. That more equality is better than less? That what matter is not so much that Sweden cuts its emissions as that it does in ways that can inspire others, even those who do not believe in climate change? Or that humility and pluralism are always preferable to the kind of absolutism and social purity sought by parts of the environmental movement?