Producer vs. Consumer

This is a paradox. People create/produce because they want:

1. to be powerful. Being powerful makes them able to consume more, hence being more happy. People do everything to be more comfortable.

2. to solve peoples problems, make the world better place = to feed their internal ego, prove the world that he/she can be helpful. This is a subliminal instinct of humanbeing having the main goal is being powerful among other species. Being powerful - see point 1.

3. to make money. Having more money makes people able to consume more, without any problems.

Aren't there any producer without a goal gaining power to consume more? I don't know, maybe. Don't we always say that if we want people use our products first we should ask ourselves would I use it? If yes, this means you are a producer, because you made a problem-solving product. But this also means you are a consumer, because you would like to use it. Mark uses facebook. Is he a producer or consumer?

Do you know any producer that don't consume 100 times more than avarage consumers?!

Lots of producers dont consume much.

And surely not 100x more than the average consumer.

You think Linus goes on reading blogs and watching movies all day?

Steve Jobs was quite a miimalist in how he lived. He even debated for months what furniture to buy -- and he lived for a while in an unfurnished apartment.

A huge lot of musicians when asked in interviews say the don't listen to much music besides what they work on.

Etc...

Nice question; I'll take a stab at an answer.

Since consumers need producers and producers need consumers, you really can't argue that either one is inherently bad.

However, I would argue that our intent should be biased toward producing, since producing helps us grow. Consuming in this context has connotations of passivity, and while rest is important, too much rest will make us weak. Also, when you are consuming you can be mindless. When you are producing, you stretch your mind. Not only do you have to think about how to meet your goal, you have to think about what you are producing in context of value and other people. It's mind-expanding.

Also, it is natural for us to want to grow, so if we spend most of our time in passive consumption it will negatively affect our mood and sense of well-being in the world.

Not sure why you are being down-voted, since your points further the discussion.

Anyway, consider Buckminster Fuller as a counterexample to some of your points. He definitely had the spirit of a producer. Here is a quote from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/automobiles/collectibles/1... :

    Fuller was born in Massachusetts in 1895 and died
    in 1983. He was admitted to Harvard twice, and twice
    expelled. He went from job to job until he was broke.
    After illness killed his young daughter, he had a
    revelation. He determined to make his life “an
    experiment to find what a single individual can
    contribute to changing the world and benefiting all
    humanity.”

This motivation trick used to work for me, it doesn't any more for some reason. I expressed it as "Action precedes motivation", since it's a recognition that once you have started working it's easy to keep going. I know some people who intentionally leave their source tree in a broken state before leaving for the day so that they have something simple to work on the next morning to start the action-ball rolling. (Or using the OP's language, make the first producing action easy to achieve.) Unfortunately it's not a guaranteed trick, it was nice while it lasted.