The specific happiness that we're talking about here is contentment -- with your life, with who you are.

I think it looks so odd to so many of us because we tend to be an ambitious bunch, and I find ambition to be pretty inversely related to contentment. The sort of acceptance that this man displays feels like giving up, in a sense. And in many ways, it is -- but that's something that Buddhists have been teaching for centuries.

I think this just tells you that happiness is not objective.

I can't find the link now but I remember reading a study that showed that mildly depressed people have the most realistic outlook on the world.