Robert McHenry writes in Tech Central Station:
Consider, instead, the possibility that Jefferson was on to something. Although he died more than a century before Alfred Hitchcock would invent the notion, perhaps he would have agreed that happiness is not truly the goal but rather the MacGuffin, the thing that seems important as it gets the story moving and keeps it accelerating but that, in the end, is itself not of much consequence. Maybe the promise, or just the chance, of happiness is what helps get us started on doing other things, things like thinking and learning and building and dreaming. And maybe those things that we do, under the impression that we are on the way to happiness, are of some account in themselves, especially if they open up new possibilities for those who come next. And maybe that’s good enough.
More here.