Is happiness worth $4.95? How about $13.95 plus tax?

If a person gets up at 5:30 in the morning and quickly runs through the handful of sites that are standard reading material, then logs on to Time.com because she has seen that the cover story is on the new science of happiness, should one suspect that there are reasons for such earnest morning reading? If she is blocked from proceeding further because Time is selfish enough to require a commitment of $4.95 before it will divulge the secret to happiness, and she hesitates before moving forward, does that mean that a.) she is happy and thinks it’s not worth the money to find out what others are saying about happiness, or b.) she is so miserable that she is stymied and can go no further?

If her next activity is to pick up the book that she has been reading on the Substance of Style and flip quickly to the last pages where she reads “we [should] enjoy the age of look and feel, using surfaces to add pleasure and meaning to the substance of our lives,” is that not suggestive that she is searching for some deeper justification for then putting aside the computer and spending the next fifteen minutes or so deciding what she should wear to go to the office, where she intends to spend the better part of the day redecorating the place? [N.b., the book is $13.95 and it is worth every penny. If you ever needed someone to explain to you why dabbling in ornamentation, delighting in purchasing pretty things and finding pleasure in aesthetics in general is an important function of life, this is the text for you.]