For those who value the time remaining in their lives and who have not deluded themselves into believing that an imaginary, idealistic, ideological future "life" after death awaits them in some ethereal realm, rendering this life - the life they sense, feel and know - relatively unimportant, productivity carries intrinsic value as a means by which to enjoy their time.
UberKuh
For those who value the time remaining in their lives and who have not deluded themselves into believing that an imaginary, idealistic, ideological future "life" after death awaits them in some ethereal realm, rendering this life - the life they sense, feel and know - relatively unimportant, productivity carries intrinsic value as a means by which to enjoy their time. Let us call those who value productivity for its own sake rational and those who do not irrational. For the rational among us, productivity is the key to happiness, the result of which is an enjoyment of the product, as well as the process, of their productive efforts. For the irrational among us, productivity is a nice way to pass the time, but, ultimately, it means almost nothing when compared to a servile obediance to static, preordained, and, thus, impractical moral principles. In short, for the rational among us, life is about doing good, while, for the irrational, it is about being "good." The first values conscious, intellectual action based on an appreciation of fact gleaned as truth. The second values unconscious, emotional reaction based on an appreciation of blind, dogmatic belief, accompanied by ignorance and fear of the unknown. Which quality do you choose - productivity or passivity? I choose productivity.
This is not a question of whether to do homework or watch television. It is not a question of whether to work eight consecutive hours or surf the web. It is not even a question of whether to work or play in a general sense. There are times, however rare, when television runs an educational program. There are times when surfing the web helps you gain valuable information about important personal issues. There are even times when taking a vacation or having sex can release stress and revitalize you for the weeks and months ahead. Choosing to be productive does not mean always working. Rather, it means using your time productively and always making a conscious decision to do what produces the most intellectually satisfying result for you and pleasurably stimulates your mind in the process. If you value life, then you value maximizing your experience of it, in whatever form, and that experience should be a pleasurable one.
Now, I openly admit that I am not, by far, the most productive person in the world. If I had to guess, I would say that I maximize about 85% of my time. This is a decent percentage, but I continually strive to improve it. It is like saying that I give myself a B in productivity. While I do not know if it might be possible to utilize 100% of one's time in consciously productive pursuits, considering such unavoidable mundane tasks as urinating, sleeping, and, largely, conforming to societal and vocational demands, I do know that most people waste most of their time on unproductive pursuits. In my experience, most people get a D or F. Each day, most people wake up, wake up their brains with caffeine, perform habitual, mechanized routines, eat when they are told to eat, and then sleep, like robots. You can tell who they are by their vacuous expressions. Unproductive people are zombies.
Those who make a difference in the world are those who make a difference for their world, for their personal experience of living in it. You will never see a productive person blow himself up on a bus. Not only is such a person sacrificing his life for some imaginary postmortem reward, but he is also selfishly forcing an end to the lives of countless others who he has never met, others who might want to live and act consciously. It is an immensely stupid act to sacrifice one's life, and it is an equally selfish act to destroy someone else's, for any conceivable reason outside that of self-preservation.
Likewise, you will never see a productive person oppose productivity. For example, you will never see a productive person attend a protest rally to oppose stem cell research. You will never see one sign a petition to ban the teaching of evolution in schools or to teach handsomely disguised religious dogma alongside evolution on equal grounds. You will never see a productive person do anything that prevents others from being productive. That would be counterproductive. Productive people support other productive people and try to avoid the unproductive majority that unfairly expects so much from them.
Again, the key to happiness is productivity, and the path to productivity is one of recognition, respect, and proactive support for its continuance. Once aware of this reality, one can begin to act in concert with it, achieving and taking pride in the monumental reward of a life well lived.
UberKuh