As for making ourselves unhappy, Dostoyevski - “Notes from Underground” - points out that we’d much rather prove we have the power to make ourselves unhappy than actually to be happy - a “chronic perversity”. Here’s the full quote, worth reprinting: “Let’s assume, ladies and gentlemen, that man isn’t stupid. (For indeed, if we say his is stupid, whom will we be able to call intelligent?) But even if he isn’t stupid, he is still monstrously ungrateful. Phenomenally so! I would even say that the best definition of man is: ungrateful biped. But this is still not his main defect. His main defect is his chronic perversity, an affliction from which he has suffered throughout history, from the Flood through the Schleswig-Holstein crisis.”