The Virtues of Age and its Wisdom By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

Now that we are left with our two candidates for this seemingly unprecedented presidential election, we have already heard the Obama camp trying to use age as a derogatory characteristic about McCain. While that really shouldn't surprise me that in 2008 we look at 71 as old, it does. It is no secret that as a society we do not respect the aged. If we look at what I would suggest to be the model society when it comes to age, wellness, and wisdom, all eyes would be on the Japanese Island of Okinawa where the elder citizens of the community are sought after because of the wisdom they can impart on the rest of their society. They are the cornerstones of the community. They also have more centenarians than any other culture in the world. Let's take a hard look at our country, the good ol' USA, which is so caught up in materialistic beauty that we may just cast a ballot based on how attractive someone looks, based on their age, and "hip-ness." Scary as that is, many voters put no more effort into their decision than just that.

The latest research coming out of Harvard, Duke, UCLA and many other gold standard institutions of data tells us that wisdom, while being a difficult word to define, has been biologically uncovered. The research has shown that the prefrontal cortex of the brain has decreased activity in the older brain. This decreased activity allows for a broader attention span and the brain has the ability to assimilate data and put it in its proper place. The elder brain takes longer to absorb the information, but the trade-off is that it is better at understanding the data with all the qualities which define wisdom such as knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion and the capacity to use all. The largest age discrepancy in all of history for U.S. presidential candidates exists today. Think about what the 25-year difference means to the qualities that define the virtue of wisdom. The questions become: is Obama mature and ready and is McCain sharp and vigorous? It is in America that we get to decide!