The Finite Lens: How a Fragile Life Gives Shape to an Infinite Universe

The question arrives early and stays late: what does it mean to live a finite, fragile life inside an infinite, eternal universe? Every serious person encounters this problem, usually around the age when the body first betrays its limits, and no one resolves it cleanly. Theology dissolves the question by denying its premise. Science measures the mismatch with such precision that the human side of the equation vanishes into decimal places. And the popular existentialist answers, the ones printed on coffee mugs and quoted in commencement speeches, have been sanded down so thoroughly that they function as anesthesia rather than analysis.

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Tribute to Viktor Frankl

by Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D.

Albert Camus wrote in The First Man: “There are people who vindicate the world, who help others just by their presence.” “Yes, and they die,” Malan said.

As a eulogy, I offer this excerpt from my personal journal. It is a small token of my esteem for Viktor Frankl who died Tuesday, September 2, 1997 at the age of 92. Professor Frankl keynoted both the 1990 Evolution of Psychotherapy Conferences and 1994 European Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference organized by the Milton H. Erickson Foundation.

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