Many things have a pathological version. Pathology is not the same as “downside”—senescence is a downside of early adaptive traits, but it is not pathological. In contrast, arrogance is pathological confidence. Positive obsession has many words in English: passion, focus, drive. The primary manifestation of negative obsession, of pathological obsession, is addiction. Obsession is agnostic with regard to whether the thing obsessed over is healthy or unhealthy. You can obsess over a love interest, which might lead to the love of your life. You can obsess over a particular varietal of mango,
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