Depth 0 — Seed (surface):
Pleasure: tastes, smiles, small wins. Easy, bright, immediate.
Depth 1 — First descent:
Pleasure fades; continuity comes from belonging, routine, safety. Feeling held matters more than fleeting joy.
Depth 2 — Deeper:
Belonging needs trust; trust needs truth and reliability. Self-trust and social trust are mirrors—one breaks, both wobble.
Depth 3 — Deeper still:
Trust rests on narrative: the story you tell about yourself and the world. If story collapses (meaning lost), emotion follows—hope or hollow.
Depth 4 — Core:
Meaning is pattern-making: connecting events into a coherent why. Coherence produces stability; stability allows flourishing.
Depth 5 — Essence (smallest atom):
Presence + coherence = lived value. When noticing now aligns with who you are becoming, “happiness” is not a feeling but an emergent state.
Final crystallized insight:
Happiness is an emergent alignment of attention, trust, and meaning — a quietly persistent order that survives moments of chaos.