Happiness as Criteria Fulfillment

Culture is existentially dangerous, especially in relation to happiness: it provides certain criteria, relative to one's own culture, as to what constitutes happiness. But the human being cannot be understood collectively. Each is his own little snowflake, really; each has specifications that need subtle fulfillment in order for happiness to be actualized.

"I have a beautiful car, a mansion house, an attractive wife, and disciplined children. I have to be happy," says the man.
"I have nothing; I am dying death," says the soul.

You may live your entire life interpreting happiness through your own cultural rubric (while almost certainly looking down on other rubrics because they aren't yours). But you transcend your type; man as a type is a contradiction: to exist is to exist with absolute particularity; to exist is to be incomparable. If you don't listen to yourself, your happiness may very well be your misery, and your misery may very well be your possible happiness. Therefore be miserable. Blessed are the culturally miserable!