Is happiness irrational?

This was helpful, thank you. I totally agree that the direct pursuit of happiness is completely self-defeating, but I can't ever convince people of it.

I'm being totally sincere.

"The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, i.e. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed."
-Maxy Staxy

Truth derives from intuition, proof derives from reason.

>The problem of Happiness is not a global problem you can solve, but a problem of the Subject to resolve.
This. You can not be objectively happy, and so it should not be analyzed.

Thats a valid point but it justifies complacency. The world is bad, eh fuck it

But isn't intuition prior to reason? If that's the case, how could the proof of a truth be posterior to the truth itself? Do you mean that intuition gives the form of a possible truth?

It doesn't justify anything, it recommends that you stop constructing vague, meaningless ideological statements like "the world is bad" and torture yourself over these. It recommends that you do what you enjoy, rather than what you think you ought to enjoy.

Is there any provision for altruism in Stirner's philosophy? Because whether or not I precisely understand the world's problems, or whether I dress that understanding with ideological undertones, the fact remains that there is work to be done.

There's no provisioning, he's not trying to get you to do anything. The mistake a lot of people make is to confuse Stirner's egoism (which has a non-conceptual basis in the unique) with rational egoism like Rand's. They're totally distinct modes of thinking.

If on the whole you like giving money to charity, or spending your time delivering food aid, he would say there's nothing "wrong" with this. But if it causes you more pain than pleasure, but you continue to do it out of some notion of "duty," he would say you are spooked, not that there's anything "wrong" with this either. A person who gives their life for their country is just as egoistic in the basic sense as someone who recognizes the futility of dying for an abstraction, but the latter is more conscious of their egoism, while the former allows their egoism to be exploited.

Ahh, so Stirner believes that genuine selflessness is impossible?

Define what you mean by "selflessness." To him, saying an action is "selfless" is as much of a contradiction as saying, "you performed the action, but you yourself did not perform it."

All "altruism" has its basis in some kind of self-benefitingness, whether material or spiritual. This is not an indictment of kindness or loving other people, or even what would commonly be called "self-sacrifice." For instance, when the soldier about to be executed scares off his loyal dog, this was construed by Schopenhauer as an "unselfish" denial of the will, when in reality it is one of the most selfish acts: he (the soldier) wanted to face his death not only with the knowledge that his dog still lives, but that he saved it from his own fate. I don't think this interpretation of the hypothetical event at all denigrates or minimizes the beauty of a person caring so deeply for his beloved companion.

This

Rationality is important and useful for many fields in life, but you need to live through the heart also, otherwise you'll sink in overthinking and depression. That was my personal resolution, at least.

All emotional states are.

>What may at first occur on this head, is, that as nothing can be contrary to truth or reason, except what has a reference to it, and as the judgments of our understanding only have this reference, it must follow, that passions can be contrary to reason only so far as they are accompany'd with some judgment or opinion.

>According to this principle, which is so obvious and natural, `tis only in two senses, that any affection can be call'd unreasonable. First, When a passion, such as hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security, is founded on the supposition or the existence of objects, which really do not exist. Secondly, When in exerting any passion in action, we chuse means insufficient for the design'd end, and deceive ourselves in our judgment of causes and effects. Where a passion is neither founded on false suppositions, nor chuses means insufficient for the end, the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it.

>`Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. `Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. `Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledge'd lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter. A trivial good may, from certain circumstances, produce a desire superior to what arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; nor is there any thing more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise up a hundred by the advantage of its situation. In short, a passion must be accompany'd with some false judgment. in order to its being unreasonable; and even then `tis not the passion, properly speaking, which is unreasonable, but the judgment.

One cannot enjoy a bad world. The construct of enjoyment is the meaningless and ideological aspect that makes one torture one's self.

ye, I decided eventually that I didn't want to resolve my dysthymia because if anything it would be blithe and callous.

Stirner's notions of such things are meaningless since he was a bum like Nietzsche or Rand, the greatest tragedy they faced was being weaned.