my metaphysical malaise

Oh, woe is me that has to keep the night-watch at the blessed IHOP. For hark! Here comes the ghost of Hamlet's father! The other Hamlet! With lots of eggs. Over easy. Not to greasy.

The book told me that there is one great hope that makes life worth it all: the hope that long-lasting inner happiness can be achieved.

I have long since come to the conclusion that long-lasting inner happiness cannot be achieved and that you have to roll with the punches and enjoy the sometime happiness that life does happen to throw at you and grit your teeth through the rest. Grimaces and smiles mostly look the same, after all.
I started to feel really depressed that the Dalai Lama and his psychiatrist friend came to a different conclusion than I had. I started to feel like maybe long-lasting inner happiness was really possible and coming to the wrong conclusion meant that I've been wasting my life. Or maybe it was my conclusion that was right and the Dalai Lama was deluding himself. So I decided that I would ask all my tables what their idea of happiness was. I only had three customers at that point in the night.
The first customer asked me why I was asking. I said, "I'm reading this book called 'The Art of Happiness' by the Dalai Lama and this psychiatrist dude about finding inner happiness and I've come to the conclusion that you should just roll with the punches and enjoy life as you can and grit your teeth through all the rest, but apparently the Dalai Lama and this dude think that a deeper more fulfilling happiness can be reached and I'm not sure what I think about it. What do you think?"
"Sounds like them guys are religious" said the woman. She went on to say, "When you get faith, you can be happy and you can appeal to a higher power and it doesn't matter what happens to you because your strength comes from God."
I asked the woman if she was religious and she said yes. I told her that I was not sure about all of that. She told me that only some people get into heaven and I said I thought that a loving God would be understanding about people like me who question. She said that no, he isn't. There is a window of time to get into heaven, and after a while, the door closes and you can't get in anymore. I thanked the lady for sharing her faith with me as warmly as I could. I told her I appreciated that she was willing to share because so many people are hush-hush about their religious views. I did appreciate it. But I don't agree with her.
The next table that came in was drunk and rowdy. I asked them what they thought happiness was and without missing a beat, the man said "Happiness is now." He smiled and turned to his lady-friend and she said, um, "Happiness is a warm gun!?" and giggled. When she'd finished giggling, she said "Actually, happiness is being sure of yourself." And we talked a bit about what they'd said and I went to my little table and wrote about it in my journal for a minute.

I love this question. I love the people who answer it. I think asking the question brings me happiness.

But I'm still unsure about what I should do about reading this book now. If I disagree with the main premise: happiness, deep, inner, lasting happiness is a reachable goal...should I continue reading it?

The lady with religion was right on a few fronts. Religious people do tend to be happier. But for me, my happiness came from the fact that what I believed in was largely unrealistic. The God I believed in once was not the sort of being that can exist. I don't believe a being can be fully knowing, fully loving, fully engaged in the happenings of people in their daily lives, fully good, and fully understanding and yet remain so aloof and mysterious. I always used to answer the "question of evil" (If God is all knowing and all loving then why does evil exist?) with the answer, "It's just that we don't know the greater good that comes from the evil."
The problem I have with this now is that, why doesn't God make it known to us? Why does he leave us hanging in agony and grief for the evil in the world. I can understand that there must be some loss and some suffering, but if it was at least explained then it would make so much more sense. Instead, in order to preserve my faith, I had to keep slamming my mind shut to the question. The more I slammed my mind shut, the more the questions came, and more slamming and more questions until one day I decided just to ask them. To say the questions out loud...to pray about it. It was then that I experienced the silence of God. Which caused a lot of grief and sadness for me.
Until I just decided that happiness and sadness are passing things, that you enjoy the happiness and grit through the sadness.

The idea that long-lasting deep inner happiness might exist frankly petrifies me. I am a crusty curmudgeon. I can handle the world just so long as I don't try too hard to be happy lest I fail. The dreamer in me is yelling "No no no...chase the rainbows! Play! Be free! Sing your songs!"
And the other Kristens are bludgeoning that obnoxious one with sticks and never let her drive. When she drives things go all to hell.

Maybe I need a little more of that in my life and I should let that Kristen drive more. Maybe crazy ought to happen. Maybe maybe maybe.