Against Happiness

humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the

“psychological moralism” places enormous pressure on us to always be improving, feeling good, and rising above our problems.2 Happiness has become the new mecca, and anything short of that often leaves us feeling that we have done something wrong or failed to live up to the acknowledged standard. This forces sorrow, pain, fear, weakness, and vulner

the opposite of happiness is hopelessness, an endless gray horizon of resignation and indifference.

the claim that virtue rather than pleasure is central to the meaning of happiness, that virtuous activity rather than enjoyment is the good that all men “really” aim at and long for, runs counter to our deepest beliefs about human happiness.

In an age such as that in which he lived, unhappiness is immediate and pressing, whereas happiness, if attainable at all, must be sought by reflection upon things that are remote from the impressions of sense. Such happiness has in it always an element of strain; it is very unlike the simple happiness of a child. And since it is not derived from th

the negativity of well-being and happiness, in antithesis to the positivity of pain.