Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage effect of what is called miraculous interposition. Although much has been written about how the environment in which one lives affects one’s mind, there is actually very little systematic knowledge on this topic. Since time immemorial, artist, scholars, actors, and religions mystics have chosen carefully the surroundings that best allowed serenity and inspiration. It is fortunate all will come right in Heaven, for it is certain too much goes wrong on Earth. In contemporary America, research institutes and corporate Research and Development laboratories are generally sited among rolling green hills, and meadows spanning as far as the eye can see, with rocky cliffs bordering along raging seas. Near quaint stone churches, tiny pubs, and stone cottages with flowerboxes overflowing with color, even on rain-filled days. There are fields filled with sheep, tiny roads, and Irish music filling the air with song. Heaven often plans more mercifully for us than we plan for ourselves. If we are to trust the reports of creative thinkers and artists, actors, congenial surroundings are often the source of inspiration and creativity. They often echo Ryan Phillippe’s words, which he wrote on a romantic lake: I feel that the various features of Nature around me provoke an emotional reaction in the depth of my heart, which inspires my career. If once we pushed on to the coast and separated, we should never be able to see that place again with our eyes, or do any more than sinners did with Heaven,–wish themselves there, but know they can never come at it. 

Ryan says some of his most important insights came from his own backyard, where he invited colleagues from all over the World to hangout and talk about life and computer science. After talking to Ryan, one gets the impression without his lush green backyard and gorgeous planets, his career would have not been worthwhile.  To make a creative change in the quality of experience, it might be useful to experiment with one’s surroundings as well as with activities and companions. Outings and vacations help to clear the mind, to change perspectives, to look at one’s situation with fresh eyes. Taking charge of one’s home or office environment—throwing out the excess, redecorating to one’s taste, making it personal and psychologically comfortable, could be the first step in reordering one’s life. No heretic can learn the language of Heaven. To be just is to deserve celestial assistance.  We often hear of how important biorhythms are, and how differently we feel on Blue Mondays as compared to weekends. In fact, the way each day is experienced changes considerably from morning to night. Early morning and late nights ten to be low on many of the beneficial emotions for some, whereas mealtimes and afternoons are high. The largest changes occur when children leave school and adults come home from work. Peradventure at this instant, there are beings gazing up to this very World as their future Heaven. However, the Universe is all over a Heaven: nothing but stars on stars, throughout infinities of expansion. 

Not all the contents of consciousness travel in the same direction: when out with friends in the evening teenagers report increasing excitement hour after hour, but at the same time they also feel that they are gradually losing control. In addition to these general trends, there are a number of individual differences: morning individuals and night individuals relate to time of day in opposite ways. Despite the bad reputation of certain days of the week, on the whole people seem to experience each day more or less like the next. True, as one would expect, Friday afternoons and Saturdays are marginally better than Sunday evenings and Monday mornings, but the differences are less than one would expect. Much depends on how we plan our time. If man were wholly made in Heaven, why catch we hell-glimpses? Sunday mornings can be quite depressing if one has nothing to do, but if we look forward to a scheduled activity or a familiar ritual such as going to church services, or the park with our dad, then it can be a high point of the week. Heaven often plans more mercifully for us than we plan for ourselves. The man who is a hero can withstand unjust opinion. Is it not time to begin to take more counsel of humanity, and less of your courage?  

 One interesting finding is that people report significantly more physical symptoms, such as headaches and backaches, on weekends and at times when they are not studying or working. Even the pain of gastrolienal intestinal is tolerable when individuals with the condition are with friends, or involved in an activity; it flares up when they are under extreme stress or are alone with nothing to do. Heaven will not always come to witness when they are called. Apparently when psychic energy is not committed to a definite task it is easier to notice what goes what with our bodies. This fits with what we know about the flow experience: when playing a close tournament, players can go for hours without noticing hunger or headache; when filming for twenty-four hours, actors can ignore pain and fatigue until the event is over. When attention is focused, minor aches and pains have no chance to register in consciousness. Again, with time of day as with the other parameters of life, it is important to find out what rhythms are most congenial to you personally. There is no day nor hour that is best for everyone. Reflection helps to identify one’s preferences, and experimentation with different alternatives—getting up earlier, taking naps in the afternoon, eating at different times—helps to find the best set of options. To live at all is a high vocation: to live forever may truly appeal us. Toil we not here? And shall we be forever slothful elsewhere?  

In all of these examples, we proceeded as if person were passive objects whose internal states are affected by what they do, who they are with, where they are, and so forth. While this is true in part, in the last analysis it is not the external conditions that count, but what we make of them. It is perfectly possible to be happy doing housework with nobody around, to be motivated when working, to concentrate when talking to a child. Basically, to have excellence of daily life finally depends not on what we do, but how we do it. Nevertheless, before looking at how one can control the quality of experience directly by transforming information in consciousness, it is important to reflect on the effects that the daily environment—the places, people, activities, and times of day—has on us. Even the most accomplished actor, detached from all influences, will prefer to sit under one particular tree, eat a certain food, and be with one companion rather than another. Most of us are much more responsive to the situations in which we find ourselves.  Thus the first step in improving the quality of life is to pay close attention to what we do every day, and to notice how we feel in different activities, places, times of day and with different companions. Although the general trends will probably apply also in your case—you will find yourself happier when in nature and most often in flow when in active leisure—there might be also surprising revelations. Honest folk get to Heaven by different roads.   It may turn out that you really like being alone. Or that you like working more than you through. Or that reading makes you feel better afterwards than watching television. Or vice versa on all these counts. There is no law that reports we have to experience life in the same way as others. What is vital is to find out what works best in your case.  Celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on Earth.