Escaping Flatland

Being creative requires taking risks

When children learn to draw, they tend to make more and more interesting images for several years until around age five, when they learn to be boring.

Jan 7 • Henrik Karlsson

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December 2025

Reflections on my first year writing full time

The best essays Johanna and I wrote in 2025, and some reflections on what it was like to write them.

Dec 11, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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Just and loving seeing

Notes on Iris Murdoch

Dec 2, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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November 2025

The paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, I change

Looking for Alice, part 4

Nov 19, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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A list of books and essays that I love

I’m purposefully not looking at my bookshelf to make sure I only pick books that I’ve thought about so much that they immediately occur to me.

Nov 4, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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October 2025

When is it better to think without words?

Non-verbal, blurry thinking is faster and can search in a broader way, but it is more error-prone than verbal thought.

Oct 23, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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Agentic fragments

This capacity to see through objects and notice how they can be reconfigured is closely related to agency. Having learned how to pick things apart and…

Oct 8, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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How I read

Reading well is an endurance sport. I sometimes talk to people who want to become serious readers and so pick up Kafka’s The Trial or something like…

Oct 1, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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September 2025

The moments

Life is not a story that builds to a climax. It is a story that meanders. In the first half, we accumulate resources—skills, friends, status—and, in the…

Sep 18, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom

When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how…

Sep 4, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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August 2025

When facing a complicated problem, don't try to solve it, try to understand it

On problem solving and form-context-fit

Aug 18, 2025 • Johanna Karlsson and Henrik Karlsson

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July 2025

A constellation of lookers

Fragments, vol. 5

Jul 31, 2025 • Henrik Karlsson

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