"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
- Maya Angelou at Husky Cabaret
As Franklin D. Roosevelt purportedly said: “Smooth sailing never made a skilled sailor.”
Does being older really make you wiser? It depends on the mistakes you have made
Imagine a face-to-face conversation with the 60-year-old you. What would you talk about? What questions would you ask?
I put this to 24-year-old Ricky. In a flash, she answered: “What mistakes can I avoid?” She wanted to know whether she should get into a relationship now or later. Ricky sought reassurance that her life was on track and that she was making the right choices.
I put the same scenario to Nate, in his early 50s. He ventured that, by now, he’d made his major life mistakes. He was curious about “how to manage the competing demands of children, ageing parents, work and a marriage”.
“I need some tips on how to cope,” he sighed.
If this “meet the older, wiser you” gig sounds like sci-fi, welcome to the future.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an AI–powered chatbot that simulates a person’s older self, complete with a digitally aged profile picture. To make the conversation realistic, the system generates a “synthetic memory” – a unique backstory between the user’s current age and their life down the track.
The chatbot then dispenses the sort of wisdom you’d normally get from a real-world sage. The only difference is that it’s actually a 60-year-old, digital version of you. Preliminary findings are that these discussions reduce anxiety and other negative emotions.
One researcher described several interactions with his projected future self. In one, the chatbot reminded him that his parents were getting on, so he should spend time with them while he could. He concluded: “The session gave me a perspective that is still impactful to me to this day.”
Because I’m over 60, this toy boy chatbot is too young to help me. That doesn’t mean I can’t still ask my older, wiser self for guidance. For me, a burning question is: “With the time I have left, how best can I continue to make a contribution and help others?”
It seems like the search for wisdom remains a constant throughout life. It’s just the questions that change.
Inherent in all these conversations is the assumption that older equals wiser. Austrian psychologist Judith Gluck, however, claims the
statistical relationshipbetween wisdom and chronological age is not strong.
“Accumulated life experience is an important foundation for wisdom, but not all highly wise individuals are old, and many old individuals are not particularly wise,” she says.
I concur. The key to attaining wisdom is not simply how much you’ve lived – it’s what types of experiences you’ve had, and how well you’ve juiced them.
To elaborate, not all experience is the same. Developing wisdom requires you to have tasted the full range of life’s flavours, including the sweet and sour. We learn best from our stumbles.
As Franklin D. Roosevelt purportedly said: “Smooth sailing never made a skilled sailor.”
Critical also is the ability to grow from this wide range of experiences. Those who don’t, or can’t, frequently get scolded with: “You should’ve known better”.
Learning from experience entails stepping back from the day-to-day bustle of life, observing, reflecting and drawing conclusions about how life works. Essentially, seeing the forest, not just the trees.
Elkhonon Goldberg, a neuroscientist and the author of
The Wisdom Paradox, believes that learning involves the development over time of “cognitive templates” based on pattern recognition. This is via our
neocortex, the part of the brain organised around groups of neurons called pattern recognisers.
What form does the resultant wisdom take beyond snappy aphorisms like “absence makes the heart grow fonder” or “never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake”?
In the 1980s, a research effort called the Berlin Wisdom Project tried to answer this.
Co-founder Ursula Staudinger distinguished between “general wisdom” – understanding how the world functions from an observer’s point of view – and “personal wisdom”, which entails insight and knowing yourself.
Imagine you lead a team working on a time-sensitive project. Your “general wisdom” guides you in best managing your people (who requires flattery, who needs clear direction, and who can be left alone). It helps you know when to be democratic in decision-making, versus when to lay down the law. Put simply, “general wisdom” tells you what works and what doesn’t.
Your “personal wisdom”, however, operates at a different level. It helps to identify, for example, what triggers your “hot buttons” in order to maintain perspective and avoid getting stressed.
As much as we might have multiple questions to ask our older selves, is there a limit to how much wisdom we want? I ask Ricky whether she would query the MIT chatbot about how her life turns out. “Not at all. That would kill the fun.”
Pretty wise … even for a 24-year-old!
Peter Quarry is a retired psychologist and writer.
Why “Wisdom Work” Is the New “Knowledge Work”
Harvard Business Review: “Today the workforce is getting older, and the number of younger workers in positions of senior management is growing.
These two developments might appear to spell trouble, in that they seem to set the generations against one another, but the author of this article argues that in fact they represent an important opportunity: If companies can figure out how to enable the intergenerational transfer of the wisdom that comes with age and experience, they can strengthen themselves — and the workplace as a whole.
We’re in the midst of two enormous demographic shifts in the workplace that seem to be at odds with each other. We’re living longer and working longer — either by choice or necessity. In the last century, the 65+ age group has grown five times faster than the rest of the population and, by 2031, according to a recent Bain & Co. estimate, employees 55 and older will constitute a quarter of the global workforce.
On this day in 1880, Cologne Cathedral was finally completed — 632 years after work began. But do you ever wonder why it was built?
Father Dante - Ravenna of Prosaic Mosaic
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
- Confucius of Double Dragon
