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?

Carlsberg Aviator

The calm of my astronaut-early morning run was abruptly interrupted by a wild boar crossing the trail ahead of me at full speed. Taken aback by its explosive movement, I stopped for a second and appreciated the fact that it was only one and not dozens.

A few hours later, Anna was on a train up to Gothenburg to be with the kids and I was at Landvetter, taking part in the last BioClaims meeting of the spring semester. Then, after a quick hop in the air aboard Torborg Viking, I was back at Kastrup and the Carlsberg Aviator lounge, which I last checked out on my way to Portugal in December. Six short months ago, but already sort of a lifetime, the past year has truly been one of accelerating space-time compression.

Having spent the last few days writing like there was no tomorrow, I am now reading up on the work of the other workshop participants. Landing at seven, I expect an early evening in Naples, perhaps over some pasta and a glass of Montepulciano, before exploring more of the city at dawn in my running shoes.

Volume

When I first signed up for the 132-kilometre Essex Way Ultra, I decided to keep my running volume low in order to minimize the risk of injury. Over the last few weeks, though, I have felt that my body is able to absorb higher mileage, so I have returned to what used to be my normal training schedule for many years. With 26 days remaining until the race, I am now planning to maintain 80 kilometres per week for another three weeks before starting to taper.

Of all the things I could write on my blog, running may be the least interesting. Still, it is a big part of my life and something that keeps me focused through all these big shifts. While some may think of me as impulsive or changeable, it is more that the dynamics of all this are very powerful and that it is genuinely difficult to figure out the best course of action.

In a recent interview, David Szalay – the author of Flesh, which I am now halfway through – said that “the more we know people, the harder they become to define”, and that is a very encouraging thought in this age of solitary identities. Be it Paris in the early aughts or Hong Kong a decade later, we accumulate these layers and memories that give depth to who we are, but also fragmentation, as the discontinuities keep adding up.

Pink Punk

While Rawls & Me has given my mother plenty of reason to worry about my alcohol consumption over the years, a fair bit of it has been props too, and being alone with the kids, so is this bottle of Serbian rosé. Seeing the label on the temporary selection shelf, it was such an irresistible throwback to the club scene of Belgrade two decades ago that I simply had to buy it.

Beyond vacuuming and throwing away things in preparation for the big move, today's great accomplishment has been taking both kids to Parkrun for the first time in a long while. Though it took some bribing in the form of Nutella waffles, both kids thanked me afterwards, and I was reminded once again how much resistance there can be to doing the things that are ultimately good for us. Without going all-out theological with Bjørn Eidsvåg's Floden, the last few weeks of procrastination have been a hard lesson, and as such, it was a relief to finally start making progress on my co-authored article about the transition to higher education.

Otherwise, my plans of going to the library with the kids fell through when I realized that today is the National Day of Sweden and that the country has been taken over by syttende-mai-wannabes. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with being proud of Sweden, especially considering all the great things this country represents, something that becomes even clearer with a bit of distance when living abroad. Still, it felt almost like a dream when someone wrote that she “wanted her kids to be world citizens”, as if I had almost given up on the possibility that there could be other people out there still aspiring to something larger.

Hail

Falling asleep with an open window, I was woken around midnight by strong winds and fierce hail hitting the glass. Lying awake, thoughts wandering, I struggled to make sense of the year that has passed since the last graduation ceremony in June 2025: how different, yet similar, my life was back then, and how grateful I am for what I have experienced despite all the pain it has entailed.

Eventually, I fell asleep, only to be woken by my 4:45 alarm telling me that it was time to get up and catch a train to Halmstad. Reading the news, I learned that Anthropic has issued another warning to slow down AI development, which, given the immense risks of recursive AI self-improvement, is as urgent as it is unrealistic, while Zelensky is calling for a face-to-face meeting with Putin.

But, for now, the world is still there and, today, we will send off another cohort of ambitious students. Celebrating how much they have learned over these past three years – the first cohort I have followed through their entire studies at Halmstad – and hearing about their plans for the future, I cannot help but feel optimistic. The road may be anything but straight but, somehow, we will figure this out.

Daydrinking

After a recovery jog through the hills of Skatås, Anna and I took the tram into town for some errands and a lovely lunch at Fiskbar 17. With the rain pouring down outside, we shared a glass of Alsatian Riesling, which felt like true Thursday decadence.

Returning home to a new batch of exams from my quantitative methods course, the afternoon hours quickly passed in front of the computer. For dinner, I had long planned to make honey butter chili aubergines, which turned out to be just as good as I had hoped. Tomorrow, I am taking the train down to Halmstad for the annual graduation ceremony and, with a bit of luck, I will have wrapped up all teaching-related duties by the time I leave for Italy on Tuesday.

Thirty minutes

Through the divorce, going to the gym with the boys has been both a reminder of normality and a shared activity that has helped bring us closer together. Though we rarely spend more than thirty minutes there at a time, it is something I really wish I had done at their age. As a teenager, I suffered from constant headaches and back problems, partly because I grew so quickly and partly, perhaps, because I was once kicked down a flight of stairs by some not-so-friendly guys at school.

Hearing my colleagues complain about their various neck issues, the value of strength training can hardly be underestimated as an adult either. As the years add up, consistency really pays off, and by now I have doubled or tripled the weights I am able to pull on most machines at Nordic Wellness. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my academic productivity for the moment. Quite the opposite of how I felt back in December, I find myself in a season of procrastination, a curious condition in which one postpones the very thing that would make one feel better (and instead writes blogposts).

Malmö Marathon

Drawn as ever to alliterations, Malmö Marathon on the third of October (which also happens to be Tag der Deutschen Einheit) proved to be irresistible after learning that both Gabriel and Nils were running. While I have done my fair share of Malmö runs in the past, the marathon course will take me out to Ön and Sibbarp, adding some new lines to my Strava heat map and hopefully a new PR as the course is exceptionally flat. All this assuming that I do not end up injuring myself during that 132-kilometre ultra in July.

Between marking exams and reactivating Instagram after a decade, I had some wild plans for Valhalla today. Having forgotten my running socks, however, I ended up just swimming a thousand metres and saving that 70.3 madness for another rainy day. At least I was able to top up with my usual Skatås loop before returning to Blackboard.

Bar Centro

Waking up to rain, I spent the morning in front of the computer working on an application. As the skies gradually cleared, I decided to check out Bar Centro on Kyrkogatan 31, a place that has piqued my curiosity for quite some time. Between the worn stone floor, the faded walls, and the smell of coffee lingering in the air, I might just have found a new favourite espresso bar.

With Naples coming up next Tuesday, it was the perfect head start: authentic coffee and a chocolate sfogliatella before heading back through the sunshine to Kålltorp and the ever-growing pile of exams.

Boardwalks and planks

From Austin to Malmö, there is something about running on wooden boardwalks – the sound, the slight give underfoot, and the sense of being suspended between water and land. Passing Pöl Harbour, I stopped for 3 × 60 seconds of planking before continuing up to Gamlestaden and Storeberget. While perhaps not quite the Griffith Observatory, the views over Gothenburg were not bad at all, and I was reminded of how much I have come to appreciate living here.

Returning home to the kids, I found that William had emptied the dishwasher, a small act of thoughtfulness that meant more than he probably realizes. With the exams piling up in Blackboard, I then grabbed a bowl of Greek yoghurt and blueberries and settled in for a Sunday of marking.