Wisdom

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-real-roots-of-midlife-crisis/382235/

Jonathan Rauch December 2014 Issue of The Atlantic

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Surveying both modern research and ancient texts, Jeste found that the concept of wisdom has stayed “surprisingly similar” across centuries and across geographic regions: “All across the world, we have an implicit notion of what a wise person is.” The traits of the wise tend to include compassion and empathy, good social reasoning and decision making, equanimity, tolerance of divergent values, comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. And the whole package is more than the sum of the parts, because these traits work together to improve life not only for the wise but also for their communities. Wisdom is pro-social. (Has any society ever wanted less of it?) Humans, Jeste says, live for an unusually long time after their fertile years; perhaps wisdom provides benefits to our children or our social groups that make older people worth keeping around, from an evolutionary perspective.

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