Use psychologist Erik Erikson's framework to explore legacy, place, and purpose in our lives.

For eons, humankind has struggled to understand its own origins—the miraculous nature of life itself—and the forces, both seen and unseen, that determine the course of individual lives. While the Psalms offer reassuring words about a guiding consciousness, Erikson, in writing about the ‘Eight Stages of Man’ (1950), says that our primary psychosocial task is to establish ego integrity. In a later book, The Life Cycle Completed, he added a lesser-known task, ‘Transcendence.’ This course will interrogate what he meant by these concepts, challenging us to ponder the mystery of our own creation as we try to define and actualize our "personal essence" in tumultuous times.