Defining happiness—let alone what leads to it—is difficult, and yet the quest for happiness is at the heart of our modern cultural ethos. In this episode, we explore Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" and how the notion of "self-actualization" reigns in our culture, when "transcendence" is what really makes us happy. And we explore the difficulties in pursuing transcendence in a culture in which moral frameworks or over-arching narratives are viewed with deep suspicion, if not hostility.