Is Happiness Really Important?

To be honest, I don't know if our idea of happiness is all that important. How often do you see a person, perhaps a little like Thassa, and actually believe that person is real? When we watch a movie or read a book in which characters are happy or things turn out well, how believable is it? I tend to find myself dismissing "happy" characters and stories as completely unrealistic and often silly. Thassa to me does not seem like she could ever be a real person. Stone on the other hand does. I can relate to Stone in many ways. His flaws, his thoughts, his failures all seem realistic. I know people like him. I identify with him. This makes me think that depression=realism and happiness=a facade. I have never been able to identify with a happy character, whether I view myself as happy or not. It is just not realistic. So how important can it possibly be?

The idea of everyone in the world being happy terrifies me. It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. People aren't right if they are happy. It just feels weird and creepy to think of a place full of happy people. It is disturbing. The natural order is not a world full of completely depressed people, but these people certainly are not "happy". A world striving for happiness is scary, because it means that something is not right.