pleasure is the law, but try not to think too hard about it

Schooler, Ariely, and Loewenstein
"The Pursuit and Assessment of Happiness
can be Self-Defeating"
(2001)

[54]

3.2 Changing Goals

[one] reason why the pursuit of happiness may be self-defeating is that it may cause people to treat activities not as ends in themselves, but rather as a means towards something else, namely the gaining of happiness. ...considerable research indicates that when individuals engage in activities for external reward (e.g., money) the activities lose their intrinsic appeal... Typically, in such studies the extrinsic reward is entirely distinct from the intrinsic hedonic value of the experience itself—for example, getting paid for a task that one would typically enjoy. Nevertheless, it seems plausible that if individuals view gaining happiness as something above and beyond the intrinsic appeal of the activity itself, such a motivation might similarly detract from the utility that is derived from an experience. For example, one might go to a concert with the primary motivation of genuinely wanting to listen to the music. Such a motivation would be unquestionably intrinsic and thus should lead to a positive experience. However, if a person goes to a concert with the explicit goal of gaining happiness, then the music itself is no longer the primary motivation for the task. In short, the hedonic value of an experience may be compromised to the degree that one is engaging in a task with the goal of achieving happiness, rather than with the goal of genuinely valuing the activity itself.

Granted the risks inherent in lay cherrypicking from specialist literature, and granted also the risk of "saying in bad English what everyone already knew," I of course find the point urgent, the logic sound, and the example well-chosen.

The question then arises, why tf go to a concert if not to be happy? It's easy to think of happiness itself as being the intrinsic part of concertgoing; banishing it to the extrinsic is on the surface nonsensical. It may be, though, that what we are really dealing with here is even more subtle than the intrinsic-extrinsic question: namely consciousness and unconsciousness (and perhaps the liminal space between them, if such a thing indeed exists). It is the subtle difference between a gainful mindset and its opposite, whatever word we want to attach to that (I can't think of a good one).

As soon as we first become aware of these inner workings, we are thrust out (probably unwillingly, perhaps unwittingly) into the ongoing struggle to recover our naive enthusiasm; to get back "in" to "the space," as I seem to recall Kenny Werner putting it in Effortless Mastery. The struggle against ourselves and our own notions of utility is hard enough. Throw in all of society's pressures and conceits and it becomes virtually unwinnable.

Also Paul Goodman, in Growing Up Absurd (1960):

[235] enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity;...

From the present philosophy of leisure, no new culture can emerge. What is lacking is worth-while community necessity, as the serious leisure...of the Athenians had communal necessity, whether in the theater, the games, the architecture and festivals, or even the talk.