Of push-ups and heroin

My disagreement with the usage of drug use is not due to addictiveness. I believe that drugs are not an effective tool for achieving happiness or fulfillment.

People often compare exercise and work to addiction, wrapping themselves up in "values" (a problem for another time).

Exercise is addictive. but I argue that unlike drugs, it is fulfilliing. And in the pursuit of fulfillment, exercise is indispensible.

Obviously, different motives can cause a person to exercise. If a person uses exercise to fulfill meaningless, petty, or unhealthy needs, then they are feeding an entirely different beast.

It is impossible at this point to ignore the matter of work and over-work. At what point does work cross the line into the realm of counter-productive?

First, we must define counter-productive; often, this term is considered in the short-sighted manner of the immediate work at hand. Counter-productive work goes directly against the desired out6come (which itself is rarely absolute). Existence has no inherent goal, or at least this is my opinion (although perhaps not my belief), and so we must take it upon ourselves to create or discover (certainly both, a way of resolving the previously mentioned conflict of opinion and belief) our own goals.

If the goal is fulfillment, and fulfillment is a sustainable health, contribution to society, challenging existence, exploration, sharing, creating, and expressing UNIQUE HUMAN ELEMENTS, then working is counter-productive when it limits the ability of the sentient being (in the long run or immediate moment, I still do not know which is of greater significance) from being fulfilled, in the manner that fulfillment has just been defined.