This evening, after I finished cleaning up the kitchen after our family dinner, I glanced at the current issue of the Economist. The cover features this headline: the Joy of Growing Old (or why life begins at 46). It’s a light read, as this so-influential magazine goes, but nice to contemplate if you’re, say, 50 years old and are wondering about your future.

The article’s thesis is this: Although as people move towards old age they lose things they treasure—vitality, mental sharpness and looks – they also gain what people spend their lives pursuing…