Is happiness, overrated?

Humans with very little variation around lifespan have been wasting their limited life trying to accomplish “goals.” The goal oriented humans run their entire life and then drop dead one day. That appears suboptimal. On the other hand, there are many who talk about happiness as if it is an uncompromising state. It is not.

Happiness is not a state, it is likely a mental disease. We can clearly treat the brain with anti-psychotics, and put that into neutral. These drugs are not the crutches humans need to be happy, they make you disappear faster. It is unclear if Homo Sapiens were ever happy, as they struggled to sustain life with food and shelter. It is not a life most want to live now, but it was certainly life.

Is happiness an attribute of a biological entity? It is unlikely, as the objective function appears complicated, dominated by food, sex and shelter, and happiness likely does not figure into any of these. Time to rethink happiness as a positive attribute, for the presence of it implies an individual who does not think about anything else than herself. Drugs can certainly do it.

Manufactured happiness is not that at all.