I think you hit the nail on the head at the end where you acknowledge that an excellent way of being happy is not to try to be happy, but just to do what you find fulfilling. Once you start asking questions about what makes you happy it is difficult to feel content with any particular state of affairs, especially if you see happiness as a reward in the future for hard work in the present. I would get out of the library and spend more time doing things you enjoy doing right now, and that will make your academic work much more productive and enjoyable.

Like Lisa, I also enjoyed your question and have been mulling it over for several weeks -- without making a lot of headway. But here is a thought. It's true that we do value various sorts of authenticity (real creativity, "real" as opposed to "surrogate" experiences, etc.), but there are different ways we could go about asking why.

One way would be to ask a sort of scientific/psychological/biological question: what is it about the way we're wired or raised that leads us to put a high value on the things you've labeled as authentic? Not being a scientist, I can't say, but it's reasonable to think that as the world actually works, authenticity and genuine effort are more likely overall to produce beneficial results. If we didn't care about real creativity, for example, then the kinds of innovations that make life better from just about any point of view might never come about. On that way of looking at things, we might say that authenticity has an instrumental value, and that this rubs off on our attitudes even in cases where not much is really at stake. For example: because being truthful is by and large useful (imagine what life would be like if most of what you said to other people was false), we come to value truthfulness even in cases where lying won't lead to any bad consequences. Because there will be more enjoyable music if people put forth the effort to create, then we come to value musical creativity, even if in any given case, our enjoyment doesn't depend on whether the musician we're listening to is a genius or a plagiarist.

But another way to think about your question is as a way of probing hedonism -- the view that ultimately, what makes things valuable is the pleasure they produce. What your question points out is that we tend not to think that way: we tend to think that really experiencing the Grand Canyon is more valuable than seeming to, even if the experiences are indistinguishable. And we also tend to think a genuine but failed effort may really be better or more noble than getting the result by lazy luck, even if the lucky sloth feels better. So one way to answer your question might be to say: we desire authenticity because it really is valuable, even if that value can't be explained in purely hedonistic terms.

Even hedonists worry about this. John Stuart Mill famously maintained that ultimately, value is to be understood in terms of happiness. But on Mill's account, happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain. And so in Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, Mill sets out to defend his doctrine from the claim that it is "a doctrine worthy only of swine." Mill addresses this worry by way of his famous discussion of quality of pleasure versus quantity. He tells us that those who have experienced both the "lower" and the "higher" pleasures are best equipped to judge their value, and they deem the higher pleasures more value.

One might wonder (and many have) whether turning this into a question about pleasure is the best way to go. But a Millian sort of move suggests itself here: whether we're hedonists or not, we might argue in the style of Mill that those who have experienced both the inauthentic and the authentic are likewise the ones fit to judge their relative value, and such people do in fact (as your question presupposes) assign a higher value to authenticity. That, Mill would say, is all the proof we can reasonably expect.

Whether this is an adequate argument is controversial to say the least. But the question you've raised is a lovely one, and I'm sorry you had to wait so long before any of us got around to offering any sort of answer.

I don't have an answer at all, except to say what you already know: in our society authenticity is usually valued, and its opposite (which might be deception, or B.S., or being a phony) is usually disparaged. Why do we hold some values on high and reject others?

Authenticity, as a value, is related to truth telling. Yet why is truth better than falsity? My buddy Nietzsche would say that it may not be. We are free to take fresh looks at long established values, perhaps to uncover the unsavory, hidden dark sides of our values - even values such as 'truth.'

I really liked your question and have enjoyed being puzzled by it!

These options needn't be mutually exclusive, right? A common definition of virtue is "a habitual disposition to act in accordance with the good for its own sake." If courage is the ability to conquer fear, and conquering fear is good, then assuming that the ability is a habitual one and not some kind of flash-in-the-pan inspiration, the answer to your question would be "both."

Aristotle counted courage as a virtue, and pointed out that virtue is found in the mean between the opposed extremes of deficiency and excess. The ability to overcome fear, if carried to excess, would not be the virtue of courage, but rather the vice of rashness.

Sorry you've been having this sort of experience. And the amount of time it took for any of us to reply may give you the same sort of feeling you were asking about. But let me at least start with a possibly lame excuse. It sounds like what you want to know may be something more in the realm of psychology: what is it about how our minds work that can make snubs, rejection and the like psychologically painful? Why don't we just shrug it off?And insofar as the question deals with how minds actually work, philosophers aren't necessarily the best experts. That said, we're in a domain where ordinary experience and insight may be able to shed some light, so let's give it a try.

Part of the answer is that we sometimes do shrug such things off. If I nod to a stranger on the street and he doesn't nod back, I might experience a momentary sense of annoyance, but I'll probably have forgotten about it literally within seconds. Whether this stranger takes account of me isn't something that matters to me. But for most of us, friendship is an important part of our happiness and being valued by others makes a difference to our sense of self-worth. For almost all of us, there are some people whose regard matters to us. If someone I'm fond of and whose company I value starts treating my coldly, I may well be distressed. Part of the reason is that I stand to lose something that's a source of enjoyment and satisfaction: the pleasure of the person's company. But another part of the reason is that I may internalize the snub: I may take it to be telling me that there's something wrong with me, and thinking badly of oneself is not fun. And the stronger my feelings for the person who seems to have slighted me, the more I may feel hurt.

All of this is familiar, I think. But there's something else that's worth noticing. We're inclined to believe our own internal monologues. We over-interpret events and then go on to over-interpret our over-interpretations. We tell ourselves stories that may have nothing to do with reality. And a small event snowballs psychologically into a great big deal. Buddhist thinkers have a word for this: papańca or mental proliferation.

So part of the answer to your question may be that at least some of the time, the pain is self-generated. It comes from our tendency to believe our own stories. The good news is that insofar as this is true, there are ways to deal with it. We can cultivate the habit of noticing the proliferation and standing back from it, not getting caught up in the inner drama. The next time you find yourself reacting this way, try simply to notice that it's happening without judging yourself or blaming. Watch your thoughts go by without attaching to them. Paying attention to how it feels in your body can be a useful technique for not identifying with the story. It's not a magic cure, but it can help. Above all, though, be kind to yourself. Feelings like this are common to all of us. There's a kind of comfort in that thought.

And... since I thoroughly agree with Peter's comments, I'll add that you can read some similar reflections by going to question 1950.

This isn't really an answer to your question but, rather, a point I find interesting about the framing of your question. (You could still ask your question in slightly different terms, of course...)

Although the idea of a "placebo effect" is common, there is actually some reason to doubt that it is "well-documented". A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Asbjorn Hrobjartsson and Peter C. Gotzsche, (May 24, 2001) argues that the trials aiming to establish a placebo effect are, for the most part, not sound.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/344/21/1594
For example, in some cases the studies don't take into account the fact that the condition of some percentage of people will improve without any medication at all. Although the studies compare people who take medication with people who take a placebo, they don't always compare people who take the placebo with those who take nothing. This, as you might expect, doesn't settle the question, but there is significant room for debate on the issue.

Not surprisingly, philosophers have always had a tendency to wildly overrate philosophizing. Let me strike a cheerfully skeptical note!

Just before the "unexamined life" remark, Socrates says "this is the greatest good for a man, to talk every day about virtue and the other things you hear me converse about examining both myself and others". Which is, frankly, absurd. Sure, a few people have a taste for philosophical discussion about virtue (and no doubt it is a good thing that some people are given to think about such things). But it is just daft to suggest that if philosophizing isn't your scene, then you are missing out on "the greatest good", and somehow your life isn't really worth living. Maybe you just prefer to spend time with your friends, or having sex, or going to the opera, or sailing, or hill-walking, or working as a doctor, or bringing up a family, or acting, or gardening, or raising money for Oxfam, or playing string quartets, or doing any of the myriad other things that together can go to make up a worthwhile life, in one pattern or another (fill in your own list in your own way). And why not? You can't do everything, and too much thinking can get in the way.

A bit of reflection about your life now and again may have its place (but usually, not general philosophical reflection about, say, the nature of virtue or "the meaning of life" or such, but reflection on the particulars of the direction of your life). But even that can be rather overdone in our therapy culture. So I certainly wouldn't worry too much about going in for some general process of "examining your life" if there aren't particular problems bugging you (and if there are, then you'll probably know what to think about!).

There is a lot of questions here. Let me pick up on just one.

Suppose Jill has devoted all her energies to her family, has centred her whole life around them. And suppose her husband, unknown to her, is a serial deceiver, holding her in contempt; one child is a crooked fraudster; the other (again, still all unknown to Jill) is a wastrel and drug-addict. In this sad situation, even if her ignorance is bliss, Jill's life is not going well. The meaning she thinks she finds in her endeavours is in fact an illusion. In this case, we could hardly "salute the meaning" her devotion lends her life, for that meaning just isn't there. Yet it could still, for all that, be the right thing to leave her in ignorance -- there will be cases and cases. What is our relation to Jill? How strong is she? What would befall her if she wakes up and smells the coffee? We can't possibly give a general rule here. But even if we think we should in the particular case leave things be, we wouldn't be "leaving well alone". That couldn't possibly be the right description!

Likewise, suppose Jack is devoting his life to some dreadful superstitious fantasy (there's a lot of it about!). His ignorance might again be bliss, but like Jill his life is certainly not going well. The meaning he thinks he finds in his devotions is equally an illusion. In this case too, we could hardly "salute the meaning" the fantasy lends his life, because it doesn't. Nor can we talk of "leaving well alone": a life based on fantasy and illusion isn't going any better for Jack than Jill. Still, it could be the right thing not to try to disabuse him of his fantasy. There will be cases and cases, as with Jill. Again, there can't really be a simple general rule here either.

I'm thinking the best in humanity would encompass both; don't you agree? Serenity seems eminently compatible with wisdom, and some interpretations of Aristotle's eudaimonia (flourishing, roughly) characterize it as serene but active contemplation of wisdom. (I'm grossly oversimplifying on eudaimonia, but it is a well-known conception of the highest human good that accommodates much of what you suggest as opposed.)