Against Excellence Your stance is that there's happiness in ignorance. It's perfectly reasonable, but as earthly beings, all of us have it within ourselves to strive to live in the present. This natural state comes with the combat of wills which result in conflict, competition, and what not—animals eat plants, humans eat animals, natural disasters kill everyone, humans conquer nature to stop this,...etc. Depending on the observer, this kind of reality may either be interpreted as negative and harmful or positive and beautiful. I see that your discussion supports the former interpretation, but to those who side with the latter, happiness becomes subordinate to excellence. By competing, contesting, fighting, scowling, crying, grieving, smiling, laughing, reassuring, comforting—i.e., by striving to live in this natural, earthly state of being, excellence becomes the virtue to strive for and happiness is just a piece in the puzzle. It is in the striving for excellence that one can really live in the most earthly way possible.
It's all about beings striving for excellence in the thing they're striving for. Plants striving for excellence in photosynthesis, animals for hunting, pets for pet companionship, livestock for livestock, farmers for their farming, singers for their singing, illustrators for their illustrations, teachers for their teaching, friends for their friendship, construction workers for their construction work, engineers for their engineering, scientists for their scientific ventures, and you name it. This is a merely a simplification, but the point is excellence is accessible to everyone and everyone naturally strives for it.
What's most unnatural to me is when beings (humans in particular) give up this earthliness for mere ideals. People will choose to give up excellence in maybe a job or an art for the sake of complete, perpetual happiness but because this is an unnatural ideal, it always betrays whoever strives for it. It's like someone who believes that "sleep is for the weak," only to deteriorate his health and pass out after a week of nonsleep. But hey, that's also excellence in some way, right? Excellence in decadence. A fine oxymoron. Cheers to you.