Happiness is ...

Are people really good judges of what will make them happy? Or is there something about happiness that must remain forever out of reach, like the rainbow that hovers just over the horizon, no matter how fast you approach it?
Tom Perrotta's new novel, Little Children, is full of characters who are spectacular at misjudging their own desires. They think they want to get married and have kids, but once they do, they feel trapped. Perhaps an affair will alleviate the boredom? Wrong again, it just makes the logistics that much more complicated. The suburban couples in Little Children are so busy cataloguing their discontents that they're unable to step back and say, hey, maybe I've got it pretty good here. (You can read an excerpt of the book here.)
Satirizing the suburbs may seem like shooting fish in a barrel, but Perrotta has a delicate touch. His characters are woefully shortsighted but still oddly likeable. And Perrotta has the most wonderful sense of pacing -- I read this novel very quickly, because at the end of every chapter I wanted to know the answer to that most profound of narrative questions: What happens next?
Perrotta also wrote Election, which was turned into a sharp, satirical movie with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. (And if you like that movie, you should check out the director Alexander Payne's other brilliant films Citizen Ruth and About Schmidt.)
And in answer to my opening questions, yes, I think we can know what makes us happy, but only if we have significant amounts of maturity and self-discipline. It takes detachment from the infantile, consumerist desires of "me" and "more."