"Faith" is what there is when there is no hope.

One only misses being a denizen of reality once that becomes an abstract dream, and that is a problem. You fantasize about it now the way a prepubescent girl does about her prince. Your fantasy is to enjoy twiddling your thumbs on a bus again, to count bathroom tiles, even to visit the post office to discharge a meaningless errand. It is only from the vantage point of what could happen that you manage to do your living, and from this vantage point you claim that you value your life. The luror of what could happen spurs you to go on, while the meat of your life passes you by. So, can it rightly be said that such a person values their life?

You can understand religion now; "faith" is what there is when there is no hope. 

the normalization of happiness

Who knew that lame trips to the convenience store through a rainy, polluted street and the ensuing perusal of unacceptably manufactured products in colorful isles under bright lights to the tune of middle-class shmaltz could be so agonizingly missed-- the way I used to sing, out of boredom, on the way there and chew gum. But that was life! That is all it ever really is. 

Normative notions are sometimes true, the way that anyone's face perks up in attention to the common language of "I am happy/but I am not happy", and really, it is probably the only thing which could be universally understood.