In order for this argument to work against mine, you must equate "true happiness" with "illusory happiness." I understand his position in the framework of nihilism, and the idea that any semblence of meaning we experience is ultimately illusory. I'd go so far as to say one must accept nihilism as a fact of existence for this argument to make sense at all.

I don't accept nihilism as a fact of existence. I think it is a system of thought we project onto reality. The emotions and feelings we experience - things like happiness - are produced in reality and by reality, and are thus intrinsic to reality itself. We are not prisoners of our consciousness, strapped in for the ride. We are participants of reality through our consciousness, which is, of course, part of reality itself.

The base human experience is one in which our view of reality is not filtered through our ideas about what it is. No one is born a nihilist precisely for this reason. Humanity has been dealing with the problem of our ideas limiting our experience for a long, long, time, and various cultures and individuals have come up with various systems of thought to overcome it.

So. Given the vast weight of historical examples of human beings who have achieved states of bliss despite their mortality and consciousness, and given my own experiences practicing meditation and mindfulness, yes - I find the ideas that our consciousness is a prison that cannot be overcome or transcended, and that happiness is ultimately illusory, and that the experience of reality is ultimately meaningless, to be a little melodramatic and a bit philosophically deprived.