I've been around bodybuilding forever. Most of the guys I knew in the 70's and early 80's are dead or failures in life. They threw away their education and the pursuit of a career living the syringe life style. Few made it out like Howard. Few were able to lead a normal career and family when juicing for decades. Who bases a life on impressing people with temporary syringe muscles as a life choice? It's a fringe outside group of misfits that need the affirmation of others that they are a man. When they go off drugs after awhile it's almost like a heroin junkie. As their muscle start going away and their testosterone fueled confidence starts to leave they need to start another cycle to keep up appearances. It becomes a vicious cycle of buying vials, pills and syringes like a junkie.
Is bodybuilding a dead end? Not if you train natural and put it into perspective. You can be fit, healthy and muscular training natural. You will never will come in third place at a Mr. Nowhere contest held in a the woods of Maine. What you will have is more important.
You're absolutely on point. Nonetheless, to see it from a philosophical point of view, there is no right or wrong in choosing a life path, as it's often the allegedly perfect family guys with perfect jobs, suits, money, suburban homes, children, wife, dog and cat who hang or shoot themselves, or take their entire family with em, trying to pick up 13 yr old girls online to seek for a thrill in their unbearable boring daily routine or, more commonly, just turn to alcohol etc.
It's not just black and white. Everyone should do what makes em happy in the long run (and that's the tricky point - in the long run).
