This closing reflection was delivered at the conclusion of the 2026 Ibsen Scope Festival in Skien, Norway.

At the 2026 Ibsen Scope Festival in Skien, Norway, I gave an opening talk about civilization, not as something we are constantly building through systems, relationships and daily choices. Blending personal reflection, cultural critique and artistic inquiry, the speech explores belonging, power, creativity and what it means to imagine different futures while living through instability and change.

After sitting at my father’s bedside and later standing in a crowded funeral line, I confronted a complicated truth: a man can be deeply good and deeply limited at the same time. In Revising My Inheritance, I reflect on faith, fear, belonging and the moral architecture of my childhood. This essay is about grief and about my decision to carry forward what steadied me while widening what once confined me.