> Most people, esp. in the US especially and in Western Europe in general fake happiness. esp in public. With true friends less. I think it's largely true. Int

> Most people, esp. in the US especially and in Western Europe in general fake happiness. esp in public. With true friends less. I think it's largely true. Interstingly enough there are parts of the world where faking unhappiness is the norm. > It is impossible to engineer long term true happiness. Or at least nobody has figured it out yet. If happiness depends on externals than its indeed immpossible, since no one can control externals all of the time. Stoicism was such an attempt to bring about happiness. By instructing its followers to dismiss any will for externals and focus on internals instead, it aimed to make them happy. It may have been seen like a bulletproof plan. Unfortunately for stoics, though, you can't control internals either. Freewill is at best limited.