ELDER WISDOM

I love synchronicities. A few days ago I decided to try and write something about wisdom and old age, a topic that has interested me for some time. I hesitated, however, because for an old person like me to talk about wisdom carries some hazards, such as appearing to be self-serving, or sappy and sentimental, or overly optimistic about the aging process. Yet surely, I thought, there must be something to the widely held belief that some special astuteness can, and often does, grow out of an accumulation of life experience.

The morning following my decision to explore this subject, I was looking through the science section of The New York Times (May 20, 2008) when—to my surprise and delight—this headline caught my eye: Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain. The fortuitous, synchronistic appearance of that article provided just the nudge I needed to proceed with my reflections.

The Times article was based on a book on neurology titled Progress in Brain Research which analyzed a number of studies on the aging brain. Recent advances in brain imaging techniques have made possible observing areas of the brain that correlate to various abilities, emotions, or states of mind. The findings of this research suggest that though it is true that older adults often have difficulty remembering specific bits of information, this is due largely to “a gradually widening focus of attention” that can diminish the ability to recall something like a name or a telephone number. This broadening of focus does not mean a decline in brainpower, but rather indicates that more information is being taken in, and is processed in a way that makes it available later, therefore contributing to problem solving in a variety of circumstances. One professor is quoted as saying that “there [is] a word for what results when the mind is able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place—wisdom.”

Elkhonon Goldberg, neuroscientist and author of The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger as Your Brain Grows Older, explains that the aging brain displays certain changes that are advantageous to the elderly. He writes about the development over our life times of what he calls pattern-recognition, a facility which, despite some neurological decline, enables older adults to approach a broad range of unusual circumstances, issues, problems, and challenges, as if they were familiar. They can do this because of their ability to recognize and utilize patterns similar to ones encountered in the past.

Gene Cohen, another neuroscientist (The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain), points out that older brains process information in a dramatically different way than younger brains. His research suggests that old people use both sides of the brain in an integrative manner to solve problems whereas young people tend to use only one side to accomplish their tasks. He also says that making wise choices or making wise decisions requires using both the logical and the intuitive, drawing on both the right and left hemispheres, acknowledging the contributions of both the head and the heart.

Cohen emphasizes that continual personal development is another important key to cultivating wisdom. In fact, he says that wisdom may be a synonym for what he calls developmental intelligence, which “reflects the maturing synergy of cognition, emotional intelligence, judgment, social skills, life experience, and consciousness.” He also describes wisdom as “deep knowledge used for the highest good,” thus adding to the word a moral component.

Ram Dass, author of Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying and well-known American guru, insists that wisdom requires a spiritual dimension: “the emptying and quieting of the mind, the application of the heart, and the alchemy of reason and feeling. In the wisdom mode, we’re not processing information, analytically or sequentially. We’re standing back and viewing the whole, discerning what matters and what does not, weighing the meaning and depth of things.”

Though we seem to know it when we encounter it, wisdom is difficult to define. Experience and knowledge are certainly necessary, but it is the manner in which these qualities are integrated and applied that is of primary importance. When we meet someone of an advanced age who has intelligence, depth, compassion, a strong sense of self, an aura of calm and confidence, and who has not only benefited and learned from their own life’s experiences, but also has the motivation to share their insights with others, then we feel in the presence of wisdom. There is also implicit in the concept a sense of fairness, a lack of harsh judgment, an emotional balance, and a genuine concern for others. Wisdom integrates all aspects of the self, and requires an ability to be still, to be reflective, to stand back and look at the whole without being caught up in the minutiae of everyday events. Wisdom is as much a way of being as a way of thinking or behaving.

As I embrace my own old age, I hope to continue to develop those perspectives and characteristics that contribute to my intellectual growth, enhance my emotional stability, enrich my creativity, and foster my relationships. Some of the qualities that I particularly seek to expand and nourish are authenticity, patience, compassion, kindness, humility, humor, playfulness, confidence, acceptance, awareness, serenity, and optimism. To the degree I am successful they will surely add to my store of wisdom.

The last piece I posted on my blog had to do with grief. Interestingly, Ram Dass offers a connection between grief and wisdom: “When we cease to resist our grief … we learn that, painful though it may be, grief is an integral part of elder wisdom, a force that humbles and deepens our hearts, connects us to the grief of the world, and enables us to be of help.”

It has been said that wisdom is one of the few things in human life that does not diminish with age. I have often maintained that there are many unrecognized and unacknowledged advantages to being old. Perhaps the possibility of attaining wisdom is one of the greatest gifts of all.