Maybe happiness is a lousy metric.

For one thing, it's just one side of a binary, so it is useless without the alternative. Would yes make any sense, without no?

The problem is that we've come to see good as an ideal, where good and bad are some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, rather than the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The1/0 of sentience.

When good becomes the ideal, than everything else must be bad and all the higher order complexity, nuance and subjectivity is suspect.

In our current social paradigm, where the goal is happiness, the method required is universal rights, but the fact is that without universal responsibilities, there is no society and right becomes a function of might.

Yet no one, especially those with any power, want to be held responsible. That's for parents and church.

It isn't what you take, that gives life meaning, but what you give. Which is why our current vision of life seems so meaningless, as everyone tries to take whatever they can.

The price we pay to feel, is that a lot of it is pain.