Because that's the default.. People haven't evolved to be happy; we have evolved to barely survive to have kids and care for them so that a few become adults. Being happy is the exception, you should ask how anyone manages that.
I can’t tell or teach people “how to be happy”. I’m not even sure that’s possible or if it’s something everyone can do or would really want to. But I do know that being hooked on a treadmill of pleasurable experiences isn’t it.
Seems like the entirely idea of happiness has been semiotically highjacked by marketing, morality, other things
When I mentally picture "happiness", all I really see is a bunch of behaviors that are frequently depicted as desirable in the aggregate by media and others
The Buddhists are a lot more sane about this than we are. Imo there's so much residue around the word "happiness", in order to achieve a sense of peace it's better to just throw it out and take each day at a time
Aristotle wrote a pretty solid book on the topic.
Maybe.
But this isn't a universal default. These escapes at this level isn't happening everywhere in every culture, is it?