Men have stronger arms, and heads for harder work, but they have no such hearts as women. And the World has been led by the heart in all ages. The quality of life depends on what we do in the eighty or so years we are allotted, and what passes in consciousness during that time. Different activities typically affect the quality of experience in rather predictable ways. If all through life we only do depressing things, it is unlikely that we will end up having lived a very happy life. Usually each activity has both beneficial and negative qualities. When we eat, for instance, we tend to feel more of a beneficial affect than usual; a graph of a person’s level of happiness during the day resembles the profile of the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay, with the high points corresponding to mealtimes. At the same time, mental concentrations tend to be rather low when a person eats, and one rarely experiences flow. There are those who like not to be detected in the possession of a heart. The psychological effects of activities are not linear, but depend on their systemic relation to everything else we do. For instance, even though food is a good mood, we cannot achieve happiness by eating around the clock. Meals rise the level of happiness, but only when we spend around five percent of our waking time eating; if we spent one hundred percent of the day eating, food would quickly cease to be rewarding. 

The same is true of most of the other good things in life: Netflix and Chill, relaxation, television watching, in small doses tend to improve the quality of daily life considerably, but the effects are not additive; a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached. We are all good and bad. Give me the heart that is huge as all Neptune; and unless a man be a villain outright, account him as one of the best tempered blades in the Universe. Unauthorized and abhorrent thoughts will sometimes invade the best human heart. The traditional view of the production process is that capital is subject to diminishing returns: As the stock of capital rises, the extra output produced from an additional unit of capital falls. In other words, when workers already have a large quantity of capitol to use in producing goods and services, giving them an additional unit of capital increases their productivity only slightly.  As we see, when adults work (or when children do schoolwork) they tend to be less happy than average and their motivation is considerably below normal. At the same time their level of concentration is relatively quite high, so their mental process seems to be engaged more than they are the rest of the day. Surprisingly, work also often produces flow, presumably because challenges and skills tend to be high when working, and goals and feedback are often clear and immediate. 

Many of us are but sorry hosts to ourselves. Some hearts are hermits. Of course work is such a broad category that seems impossible to make an accurate generalization about it. In the first place, it makes sense to think that the quality of experience when working would depend on the kind of job one has. A traffic controller must concentrate much more on his job than a night watchman. A self-employed entrepreneur presumably is much more motivated to work than a clerk in a government office. While this is true, the characteristic signature of work persists despite the very real difference. For example, the experiences of managers when they are on the job resembles their own experience when they are at home. Nothing like a cold heart; warm ones are ever chafing, and getting into trouble. Another problem of generalizing about work is that the same job will have many aspects that are experienced differently. A manager might love to work on a project but strongly dislike to sit in conferences, while an assembler might love to set up a machine but strongly dislike taking inventory. Nevertheless, it is still possible to talk about the distinctive quality of the work experience in comparison with other general activity categories. The more it resembles a flow activity, the more involved we become, and the more beneficial the experience. When the job presents clear goals, unambiguous feedback, a sense of control, challenges that match the worker’s skills, and few distractions, the feelings it provides are not that different from what one experiences in a sport or an artistic performance. 

Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go, if we would find out the heart of a man. The diminishing returns to capital has another important implication: Other things equal, it is easier for a country to grow fast if it starts out relatively poor. This effect of initial conditions on subsequent growth is sometimes called the catch-up effect. In poor countries, workers lack even the most rudimentary tools and, as a result, have low productivity. Small amounts of capital (cash) investments would substantially raise the workers’ productivity. By contrast, workers in rich countries have large amounts of capital with which to work, and this partly explains their high productivity. Yet with the amount of capital per worker already so high, additional capital investment has a relatively small effect on productivity. Studies of international data on economic growth confirm this catch-up effect: Controlling for other variables, such as the percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) devoted to investment, poor countries do tend to grow at a faster rate than rich countries. For myself, it would be no great indulgence to be kept shut up in those mansions of which they preach, having a natural longing for motion and the chase. The way to Heaven is as up a ladder, and the way to hell is as down a hill. And Earth was a Heaven a little the worse for wear. And Heaven was Earth, done up again to look like new. Compassion the heart decides for itself. It is a poor heart that never rejoices. To this mind of the heart, some bright ray of the truth shot straight.