Negative emotions are processed principally in our right hemisphere and positive emotions in the left. It makes sense to be wary about a novel challenge, and positive about a familiar challenge with an existing effective solution.

It's efficient for individuals and organizations to develop effective routines for familiar reoccurring problems. The creative comprehension and resolution of a novel challenge requires much more time and energy, even though the process is intellectually stimulating. As we age we thus tend to develop an increasingly large repertoire of routines that we incorporate into the resolution of a wide variety of challenges. We may come to resent novel challenges, because we lack the requisite energy they require. We thus become set in our ways.

The arts and sports have been historically important in all cultures, and Goldberg suggests that their principal purpose is to exercise body and mind. They provide a form of right hemisphere challenge in informal non-threatening settings, so that we'll be in physical/cognitive shape to tackle analogous real problems when they occur. Young people certainly spend much of their time and energy on play/game activities that prepare them for adult challenges. For example, they seem to intuitively know that they better get on a tricycle at three and begin to master wheels if they intend to drive a car at sixteen.

Goldberg argues that such physical and cognitive exercise is equally important later in life. Children prepare for a qualitative life, the aged seek to maintain it. Wisdom emerges in older people who have developed a large repertoire of useful solutions to life's challenges—and can effectively incorporate them into the resolution of new challenges. Younger people who must live in the here and now typically don't ascribe wisdom to elders who continually decry the current culture and yearn for the old days.