Something caught my eye yesterday as I read Peggy Noonan’s wonderful column in the Wall Street Journal this week. The article centers on the story of the good thief in Luke’s Gospel, and the lesson the tale teaches. Noonan mentions a conversation she had with the rabbi of Central Synagogue in Midtown Manhattan about how people “deepen themselves.”

According to Noonan, the rabbi recalled her exchange with a woman at the synagogue’s Wise Aging group who thought that the decade between 60 and 70 is the period when people experience the most growth in their lives. The rabbi initially disagreed, citing studies showing that adolescence is the time when the bulk of personal development occurs. But the woman insisted that age 60 is when most people reach the peak of their powers. She went on to say that 70 is when we “start to grapple with transitions, with who we are, and the aging of our bodies.” She added: “It is the time of confronting the big questions of life. It is then you can change your spiritual outlook, your character.” The rabbi ultimately agreed with the woman’s thinking, concluding that “the big questions are the things that cause us to change.”

I have noticed this change in my own life. I am in my early sixties, and some switch seems to have turned on inside me in the last couple of years. My mind has become flooded with all kinds of random questions that I am constantly grappling with. I have been doing so mostly in writing. On certain subjects, there is some level of opinionating in my writings but largely, the thoughts I express are exploratory.

Examining those “big questions” has changed me in some fundamental ways. One is that I have become a lot humbler than I ever was. More and more, I am realizing how immensely complex the world is, and how necessary it is to keep an open mind at all times. I make a conscious effort nowadays to do a lot more listening than talking.

After reading Noonan’s essay, I began to wonder how others who have crossed that “magic line,” age 60, have handled their own experiences. Is it possible that some people undergo that transformation earlier, or later? My sense is that it is more of a progression, rather than a step function. Ideally, that evolution should begin sooner rather than later for all of us. We, as individuals, and the world, would be better off for it.