Rawls & Me

Interrailing from above

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:38:09 +0000

Crossing the Apennines, snow is still visible on the higher peaks. Europe truly is our playground and, just like last night, I get that feeling of open-ended adventure: that somehow the story is far from over.

Yet, finishing the last pages of David Szalay’s Flesh, I am struck by an acute sense of physical vulnerability, a reminder of how quickly things can change, like when Anna fell on that cliff back in 2023. Though his life is so different from my own, following István around Europe has meant coming back to many places that I know, and to all their contingencies and memories. As much as I keep telling myself that I have more agency in my own life, the tiny and seemingly insignificant circumstances do have a tendency to add up over time. Looking down as we enter German airspace, I can almost see the trains criss-crossing below, like an Interrail pass holder still not knowing if the night will end in Brussels, Cologne or somewhere else entirely.

Arancia rossa

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:58:23 +0000

Waking up to another day of Italian sunshine, a slight hangover from last night made me trade my planned morning run for an early bus ride out to the airport. After a couple of coffees and some blood orange juice in the lounge, life is slowly returning to normal, and I can finally sum up the last few days.

Contrary to my fears on the flight down, everything went well in the end, and I have made a number of new acquaintances. Inspired by the success of the workshop, we are now planning a special issue that seeks to bring perspectives based on sufficiency and abundance into productive conversation. We are also hoping to organize another workshop in Ravenna sometime next year.

Meanwhile, back in Sweden, I have been asked to plan a new course on AI and public administration, something that I suspect could be of interest to many these days. With two more weeks of work remaining before the summer, I should be able to submit the article I have been writing on the transition to higher education and make sure that all my EU lectures for the autumn are planned and ready before August rolls around.

Friareielli

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:07:26 +0000

To reveal my absolute ignorance, “friarielli” has been the biggest culinary discovery of this trip. While I may well have encountered rapini in China in the past, this was the first time I tried the Neapolitan classic salsiccia e friarielli. Always weak for cabbage-like greens – for which I fully blame Gabriel and his Polish cooking – I found it an absolute treat: bold, bitter, and deeply savoury.

Sharing a bottle of Campanian red wine with my newfound Serbian friend and historian Damjan, I had one of those evenings that remind me why I would never want another job, and why I still find the world endlessly fascinating.

The abstract and the concrete

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:52:30 +0000

One criticism of my environmental philosophy work, to which I am largely sympathetic, is that it is too much about grand theory and too little about real lived experiences.

Wrapping up our two-day workshop at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale, the contrast could not have been sharper as my talk followed directly after a German PhD student had presented her work on “Fast Techno-Fixes, Slow Repair: Reparative Abundance Beyond the Labour–Climate Divide in Sicily’s Petrochemical Corridor”. Being a site of obvious environmental trauma, Sicily's petrochemical corridor seemed a long way from my vision of a bright ecomodern future (echoing the piece I wrote on conflicting temporalities back in 2020).

While it is easy to see the value of bottom-up approaches, one still has to recognize that they are inherently conservative. Imagine someone going to 19th century Sweden studying smallhold farmers. The intuition of most present-day social scientists would have been to find ways of making poverty slightly more bearable. In reality, mass migration to the United States and large-scale urbanization followed, paving the way for the industrial society that has allowed me to start this morning with a lovely run and a swim in the Mediterranean, completely emancipated from the serf-like conditions that existed back then.

I guess what I am trying to say is that, sometimes, it is also important to remember the bigger perspectives, and recognize that change – which is often painful in the present – may be absolutely essential in the long run.

Sprada

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:41:37 +0000

Lungomare

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:53:31 +0000

From Bali to Beirut, few things beat a morning run and having the city to yourself before everyone else wakes up. Flying along the waterfront in my Hoka Bondis that I managed to pick up from Sellpy for close to nothing, I stop for coffee and a chocolate croissant that would make any Starbucks breakfast blush.

Now back at the hotel, I look through my pictures as I down a 1.5 litre bottle of water. With the temperature expected to climb up to 30 degrees today, I am both looking forward to and not looking forward to spending the day indoors at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale.

Most authentic

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:52:38 +0000

Turning pages in the book by Szalay (damn, how good it is!) 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 about whose mother cooked the best food and whose regional cuisine was the most “autentico”.

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: to avoid commodifying her own aesthetic and 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 matters is not so much that Sweden cuts its emissions as that it does it 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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:26:25 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 17:18:38 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:32:05 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:59:09 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:07:07 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:12:07 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:24:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 12:42:05 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Sun, 31 May 2026 08:21:32 +0000

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.

Szalay

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Sat, 30 May 2026 16:08:28 +0000

My original plan for this week was to repeat one of the hundred-kilometre weeks of January, which would still be on the low side considering that I have a 132-kilometre ultra coming up in five weeks' time. But, being alone with the kids, I will struggle to even make it to eighty. Hopefully, I will be up with the sunrise tomorrow and ready for a long run.

Before that, I keep turning the pages of David Szalay’s Flesh, a novel that someone likened to a night train, where with each chapter the main character is older and in a new place, in medias res. A bit like Rawls & Me if you jump between the years. Following Stockholm Marathon on Strava, I realize that seven years have passed since I last ran it myself. Looking at the familiar route, I remember the completely unexpected tears when someone in the crowd shouted “Go, Dad!” and the feeling of crossing the finish line at Stockholm Stadion just short of my goal of 3 hours and 45 minutes. Like the protagonist István, one somehow ends up in a different chapter before noticing how much time has passed.

Eden

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 28 May 2026 18:27:53 +0000

Over the years, this blog has seen many Edens, from my PhD studies in Lund to Steinbeck country. Tonight, I am thrown a world away to South Australia and the cool-climate wine region of Eden Valley, famous for its mineral-driven take on the Riesling grape, as Systembolaget currently carries a new wine called “Vickery” that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Otherwise, one may be forgiven for thinking that I had been to Austria rather than Australia on my trail run as I passed lots of red and white waymarks while exploring a newly marked-out trail between Sörlyckan and Bertilson’s cabin this morning. Again, I feel so incredibly fortunate to be able to shift my work around so that I can go for these longer runs and make the most of these luminous early summer days.

Bridges and piers

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Wed, 27 May 2026 10:42:18 +0000

Someone said that if a bridge requires a lifetime of one-sided construction, it was never a bridge to begin with – it was a pier. With those words on my mind, I look out over Västgötaslätten from the upper deck of train 167 as I head back to Gothenburg after a brief reprieve from my rapidly changing life circumstances.

In thirteen days, I am off to Naples for a conference themed “Abundance or Sufficiency? The Left’s Diverging Paths in the Green Transition”, which I am very much looking forward to. Before that, however, there will be another mad round of grading in the days leading up to the graduation ceremony in Halmstad on 5 June.

Et sola gratia

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Wed, 27 May 2026 05:02:54 +0000

Halland

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Mon, 25 May 2026 17:40:15 +0000

Wrapping up the last lecture of the spring semester, I jumped on a green electric scooter and took my Asics Novablasts out for eleven kilometres along the coast of Halland. A part of Sweden that was nearly unknown to me until 2023, Halland has definitely grown on me since, as its liminal character brings together childhood memories of Skåne, the openness of the western sea, and that windy Road 25 leading back to Kalmar.

But, like an old ghost from Kenmare, aesthetics again proved insufficient, and maybe that is ultimately for the better. It is just that it really is back to square one, to have been weighed only to be found insufficient – divides that no words can bridge. Sola fide.

Tomorrow, I am off to Örebro and the great forests of Bergslagen, renewing my faith in what truly matters, as time really does lend perspective on limerence and other things. The other day, I read Emma Engdahl’s new book, Lektioner i kärlek, and it is a book I plan to keep.

The Blue Line

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Sat, 23 May 2026 15:23:00 +0000

For the second time in my life, I got to follow the blue line around Gothenburg. Unlike in Italy, where I was aiming for a new PR, or in 2024, when I was running next to Anna, I had no goal at all today except to make the most of my free race entry and fully embrace the party that is Göteborgsvarvet.

Running with 55,000 other people means that pacing for the first few kilometres is not really up to you anyway, but after three kilometres, I was able to dip below five minutes per kilometre and sustain that pace for most of the race. Passing Älvsborgsbron, it started raining but, unlike two days ago, it was not dramatic at all, and by the time we reached Vasagatan, the sun had returned.

Finishing in exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes, I was ten minutes short of my PR, but super happy with my even pacing and controlled effort. At no point did I feel dizzy or overextended, and at 47, I think I should be happy about finishing among the fastest 15% of runners.

Collage

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Thu, 21 May 2026 18:33:52 +0000

After my original plans to check out Kol & Cocktails in Helsingborg fell through, I decided to spend this month’s American Express dining benefit at Collage right here in Gothenburg. Joined by Anna, who deserved a dinner out more than most after spending eight hours in front of Zoom supervising students, we were free to choose anything we wanted from the regular menu, which in our case meant entrecôte with red wine barigoule sauce, served with French fries and Collage’s foamed béarnaise sauce, to which I ordered a glass of Château de Rochemorin and Anna a Kronenbourg lager at our own expense.

Made from a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, my wine was a full-bodied red with firm tannins, something which foxes are well known to appreciate.

For dessert, Anna picked a fascinating rhubarb creation while I stuck to tradition and Crème Brûlée. With still more than an hour left before William would finish his chess class, we took the elevator up to Heaven 23 for their special anniversary cocktail celebrating 25 years high above the Gothenburg skyline.

Balmoral

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:20:03 +0000

Taking the ferry over to Lindholmen for some gym time together, William and I got to see the 217-metre-long Balmoral anchored at Amerikaskjulet, and also Hotel Draken in all its grandeur. After working out, we continued on foot to Sannegårdshamnen for a futurism-heavy stop at the same bakery where we usually take a break when I run my harbour half marathons.

Having consumed his fair share of science fiction lore and dystopias, it is both fascinating and slightly unsettling to listen to William talk about artificial intelligence and humanity’s future. Drawing on the “Dark Forest” idea from Chinese science fiction, he wondered whether an advanced extraterrestrial civilization might see humanity as uniquely dangerous once AI reaches a point where it can begin developing beyond our control.

Considering that his teacher apparently did not even know what the word “dystopia” meant, I sometimes feel sorry for William for having to wrestle with thoughts so different from those of his peers. Heck, they are far beyond the imagination of many professors of sustainability, who often seem to have remarkably little to say about the larger trajectory of human civilization.

Tapiz

noreply@blogger.com (Rasmus Karlsson) — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:45:35 +0000

Long before Gothenburg woke up, I attempted some fasted cardio – running through the loveliest sun-sprinkled mist before breakfast, aiming to improve my body's ability to burn fat rather than carbohydrates for energy. With the world’s largest half marathon, Göteborgsvarvet, coming up on Saturday, I will probably skip my planned midweek long run and focus on shorter sessions and some additional strength training.

The rest of today was spent supervising students online and working on a grant application for the Swedish Research Council, though somehow I still managed to have a surprisingly good lunch with Anna at the railway station. Once she and the kids got back from their TBE shots in the afternoon, I made Risotto alla Milanese with salmon for dinner, served with a blend of Chardonnay and Viognier from the mountains of western Argentina – a wine that has recently become part of Systembolaget's regular selection.

Knowing for certain that Anna and William will be moving to Västerås later in the summer, it feels good for all of us to be together for a few days.