Prep for Mill

If a particular action or an object produces pleasure while another produces pain, and the former is considered good and the latter bad, we should structure our lives such that we aim to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for the greatest amount of people in the community. Of course, too much of a good thing can cause pain, such as excessive eating, so excess must be necessarily avoided. The question is this: should the individual maintain a minimalist lifestyle so that he/she may donate to the greater pleasure of society? Or should the ascetic be shunned in favor of he who concentrates his most productive activities on himself and his closest friends? The answer is most obviously "somewhere in the middle", but that "somewhere" will be different for each individual, but those who fall at the ends of the continuum are significantly less helpful to the community that those closer to the middle.