Happiness is not a goal the brain actively pursues, nor is unhappiness a reliable trigger for self-improvement. In a Predictive Feedback (PF) framework, happiness emerges when prediction error is low and stable—when the system no longer needs to escalate corrective effort. Unhappiness, by contrast, appears in two fundamentally different regimes: PF escalation, which produces anxiety, restlessness, and motivation to change; and PF collapse, in which persistent, unsolvable prediction error leads to withdrawal, apathy, and the loss of initiative commonly labeled depression. The widespread belief that suffering should automatically generate growth reflects a category error. Motivation depends not on negative feeling, but on whether PF still judges prediction as solvable. Depression is therefore not failed happiness-seeking, but predictive disengagement.
