“Moderately wise each one should be,

Not overwise, for a wise man’s heart

Is seldom glad.”

(Norse wisdom-literature)

According to health.com, there is not one Southern state in the “25 healthiest states in 2013.” Nary one. Hawaii is a healthy state, even with its active volcanoes. California is a healthy state in spite of smog. Alaska is a healthy state even with glaciers, brown bears and harsh, harsh winters. A Southern state? Not one in the list of 25.

Lots of states in the West and Northwest made the healthy list: Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana.

Eastern and Midwestern states made the list: Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Maine, Rhode Island, Maryland and Iowa. Even Wisconsin made the list of healthy states!

So where are the states of the South? Well, we have representation on another list: the 10 most depressing states. Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee made that list along with Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma and West Virginia. So, Wisconsin is healthy but Michigan is depressed? Really?

I prefer to look at things a little differently than health.com. The way I look at it, Southerners aren’t so much depressed as “moderately wise.” We just appear to have the blues because we know better than to go overboard with mirth and frivolity. We’re used to the other shoe dropping. That explains why I, as a Alabamian, never get overjoyed when the legislature’s in session in Montgomery. Granted, it doesn’t explain why we keep sending the same ol’ people up there to do our bidding, but then nobody can explain how California with all that smog and those fault-lines is a healthy place to live either.

Actually, we shouldn’t judge other states or regions any more than they should judge us. I mean, how could somebody in healthy Hawaii know that what appears to be Mississippi melancholy or low spirits is actually borderline wisdom? No way they can understand that we avoid being overwise in the same way we avoid stepping on a copperhead. Both are poisonous and can deliver a nasty bite.

It’s the same reason there are so many poor people down here where we live. It isn’t what some might think. Truth is, we’re just wise enough to avoid money. It’s like that wise saying, “A man knows nothing if he knows not/That wealth oft begets an ape.”

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.