Flourish As You Age

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Flourish As You Age

Michael C. Patterson

207 episodes

1 month ago

Comments? Send me a text message. Our accidental mind is a marvel of evolution—capable of breathtaking creativity, yet vulnerable to distraction, self-deception, and runaway ego. In this week’s Welcoming Wisdom podcast, we explore two unlikely partners in this drama: the premotor cortex and the default mode network (DMN). The premotor cortex rehearses actions before we move, allowing us to simulate outcomes and imagine future possibilities.The default mode network weaves our sense of self and...

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Health & Fitness,

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Comments? Send me a text message. Our accidental mind is a marvel of evolution—capable of breathtaking creativity, yet vulnerable to distraction, self-deception, and runaway ego. In this week’s Welcoming Wisdom podcast, we explore two unlikely partners in this drama: the premotor cortex and the default mode network (DMN). The premotor cortex rehearses actions before we move, allowing us to simulate outcomes and imagine future possibilities.The default mode network weaves our sense of self and...

Show more...

Health & Fitness,

Episodes (20/207)

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #12 - The Pre-Motor Cortex and the Default Mode Network

Comments? Send me a text message. Our accidental mind is a marvel of evolution—capable of breathtaking creativity, yet vulnerable to distraction, self-deception, and runaway ego. In this week’s Welcoming Wisdom podcast, we explore two unlikely partners in this drama: the premotor cortex and the default mode network (DMN). The premotor cortex rehearses actions before we move, allowing us to simulate outcomes and imagine future possibilities.The default mode network weaves our sense of self and...

1 month ago

15 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #11 - The Obstetric Dilemma

Comments? Send me a text message. The Obstetric Dilemma and the Birth of the Plastic Brain What happens when evolution backs itself into a corner? In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores one of the most profound evolutionary compromises of all: the obstetric dilemma. As our ancestors evolved upright posture and larger brains, childbirth became a dangerous bottleneck. The solution wasn’t elegant but it was effective—babies began to be born earlier, with brains sti...

1 month ago

10 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Singing Our Way Into Flourishing: Encore Creativity + Pasadena Villages

Comments? Send me a text message. This month’s podcast episode tells the story of how two remarkable organizations—Encore Creativity, the nation’s largest choral program for older adults, and Pasadena Villages, a thriving part of the Village Movement—came together to launch a new singing ensemble in Southern California. At first glance, it’s a story about a choir. But look closer and it becomes a story about aging well, intergenerational collaboration, and the power of music to lift health, j...

2 months ago

21 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #10 - Working Memory: The Whiteboard of Consciousness

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores working memory, the fragile mental workspace where consciousness itself takes shape. Think of it as the virtual whiteboard of the mind—a place where perceptions and memories flicker into awareness, linger just long enough to be combined or reshaped, and then fade to make room for new thoughts. Working memory may be limited, but it is also the platform of conscious life: the stage on which r...

2 months ago

16 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #9 - The Kluge Within: Navigating the Accidental Mind

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores the “accidental mind”—not a perfectly engineered machine, but a brilliant kluge (pronounced klooj): an evolutionary patchwork that works despite its awkward design. Drawing from David Linden and Iain McGilchrist, we look at why the brain’s jury-rigged architecture needs scaffolding—culture, contemplation, and mature perspective—to function wisely. You’ll hear about: Why evolution builds “go...

2 months ago

11 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #8 - Mature Creativity

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode, Michael C. Patterson traces the creative landscape of later life — from Dr. Gene Cohen’s groundbreaking research on creative aging, to Twyla Tharp’s fierce manifesto for movement, to the wide horizons of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds. He concludes with a reflection on how artificial intelligence has become a collaborative partner in extending his mature mind. The episode is a compelling exploration of how creativity, adaptability, and n...

2 months ago

15 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #7 - Developmental Intelligence: The Super Power of the Mature Mind

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode, host Michael C. Patterson explores Dr. Gene Cohen’s groundbreaking concept of developmental intelligence—the idea that our minds can continue growing in complexity, depth, and wisdom throughout life. Drawing on Cohen’s framework for postformal thinking—relativistic, dualistic, and systematic—Michael shares insights from his book Welcoming Wisdom and discusses how mature minds can cultivate new ways of seeing, thinking, and contributing to a f...

3 months ago

18 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #6 - Mature Minds and the Sky Above Clouds

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson explores the often-overlooked strengths of the mature mind. Drawing from his upcoming book Welcoming Wisdom, he challenges the myth of inevitable cognitive decline, offering instead a vision of aging as a period of continued mental development, creative growth, and integrative insight. Through reflections on Plato’s Republic, Anne Rice’s wise vampire Marius, and Dr. Gene Cohen’s beloved metapho...

4 months ago

10 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #5 - The Time to Flourish

Comments? Send me a text message. What happens when we finally get the free time we longed for—only to find it strangely unsettling? In this episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson explores leisure as a vital (and often overlooked) condition of human flourishing. Drawing from his book Welcoming Wisdom, he traces how cultural expectations around work have shaped our identity, how the pandemic opened space for reimagining daily life, and how emerging technologies may lea...

4 months ago

12 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #4 - Awe, Ethics, and the Sacred Path to Flourishing

Comments? Send me a text message. In this final episode of our opening series on Flourishing, we explore the deeper dimensions of what it means to live a meaningful and well-lived life. Drawing from awe research, contemplative neuroscience, and classical philosophy, we reflect that flourishing is not a fixed state but an emergent, relational process—one shaped by attention, moral insight, and reverence for life itself. You’ll hear excerpts from Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a K...

4 months ago

17 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #3 - Flourishing with Virtue

Comments? Send me a text message. What does it mean to live a virtuous life—and how does virtue relate to human flourishing? In this episode, we explore the moral dimensions of flourishing through both Western and developmental lenses. Drawing on classical ideas from ancient philosophy, we ask whether virtue is grounded in reason, emotion, or something deeper. We focsu on the work of psychologist Darcia Narvaez, whose research suggests that our capacity for virtue is rooted in the benev...

4 months ago

13 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #2 - The Right To Flourish

Comments? Send me a text message. What does it really mean to flourish as we age? In this second episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson draws from his forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future, to explore timeless and evolving ideas about the good life—from Aristotle and the Stoics to Buddhist teachings and modern psychology. This episode invites listeners to clarify what flourishing means to them—beyond comfort or ach...

5 months ago

10 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Welcoming Wisdom #1 How Will You Know When You're Flourishing?

Comments? Send me a text message. In this inaugural episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael Patterson introduces a new podcast series drawn from his forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future. The episode offers an overview of the book’s foundational ideas—redefining what it means to flourish as we age, exploring the cognitive strengths of mature minds, and presenting the provocative hypothesis that we may be living on the edge of a Second...

5 months ago

12 minutes

Flourish As You Age

Aging: Experts Can't Agree on What it Is.

Comments? Send me a text message. When do we start aging? What is aging? What causes aging? These were some of the questions posed to aging experts (professionals, professors, graduate students) who were attending a conference on aging called “Systems Aging.” The big takeaway from the survey was that there is no consensus about what aging is. The experts disagree about the definition of aging, its causes, when it starts and what it would mean to be rejuvenated. The experts D...

8 months ago

15 minutes

Flourish As You Age

A Miracle Cure For Aging? The Benefits & Risks of GLP-1 Drugs

Comments? Send me a text message. GLP-1 Drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, originally developed to treat diabetes, have been found to lower risk-factors for a broad-range of conditions that accelerate the aging process. But there are also risk factors that need to be taken into account. The benefits of GLP-1 drugs include reduced risk of seizures, heart attack, stroke, other cardiovascular concerns, suicide ideation, self-harm, bulimia and psychotic disorders. They decrease inflammat...

9 months ago

7 minutes

Flourish As You Age

America's Lousy Report Card on Health & Well-Being

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode I focus on how our socioeconomic ecosystems affect our ability to flourish - or, more to the point, how they makes it harder for us to flourish. Early this year, 2025, as the Trump administration took power, a group of politically diverse scholars published a Report Card on American Well-Being. On the one hand, the economy is doing great - for the wealthy. But by most other measures the nation is floundering. We are a wealthy nation, but...

9 months ago

29 minutes

Flourish As You Age

WHAT IS "AGING" ANYWAY?

Comments? Send me a text message. What is aging? What do we mean when we say we are aging? In this episode, I'll discuss our paradoxical attitude towards aging. On the one hand age implies physical and mental decline and debility. On the other hand age implies wisdom and sagacity. I'll discuss the differences between Chronological and Biological Aging and Primary and Secondary Aging, And I'll discuss the difference between "life expectancy" and "lifespan." We will also...

9 months ago

18 minutes

Flourish As You Age

END-OF-LIFE #10 - RETHINKING DEATH & DYING

Comments? Send me a text message. In the epilogue to his book, Achieving a Good Death, author Chris Palmer summarizes his thoughts on how we might reconceptualize our basic attitudes about the process of dying and death itself. Death tends to be a taboo subject, but death is a natural and inevitable part of life. It is death that gives meaning to life and makes it precious. Chris says that his goal is to have a long "healthspan," and then a "Niagra Falls end-of-life." He wants to stay hea...

11 months ago

13 minutes

Flourish As You Age

END-OF-LIFE #9 - Simplify Your Life

Comments? Send me a text message. Taking steps to simplify our lives as we age has benefits not only for ourselves but also for our loved ones. In my ninth conversation with Chris palmer, author of Achieving a Good Death, we talk about simplifying, decluttering and minimalizing our physical environments. The wealth of possessions we have accumulated over the years often do nothing but distract us and clutter up our lives. By shedding unwanted and unused possessions we can reduce our&nb...

11 months ago

11 minutes

Flourish As You Age

END-OF-LIFE #8 -Important Documents

Comments? Send me a text message. In this episode I talk with Chris Palmer, author of the new book Achieving a Good Death, about important documents you can prepare to make sure you have the kind of end-of-life experiences you want. Chris and I discuss two broad classes of documents, The first set of documents are concerned with recording and sharing important aspects of the legacy you want to leave. Chris describes how to prepare legacy letters, ethical wills, and memoirs.&nbs...

12 months ago

16 minutes