KEZIA has left the building, and the commentators to a man, and a woman, said it was for the best, “for her happiness.”

First thought; did she expect to be find happiness in the sneering, sniping, GERS-deficit, oil-evaporated, academia-crumbling world that is Scottish politics? If Holyrood was about fun there would be a bouncy castle in the grounds and a ball pond inside. And the MSPs could bring games on a Friday.

But the second thought is little more serious; can Scots ever be happy? Is being Scottish and happy mutually exclusive?

Happiness, or at least the study of it, is all the rage at the moment. This week Derren Brown’s Happy sits nicely in the nation’s Top Ten paperbacks. Meanwhile, American road-to-happiness writer Rhonda Byrne has sold 28m copies of The Secret. And you can’t attend a dinner these days without someone chewing on the merits of self-help gurus such as Eckhart Tolle.

Yet, how can you find happiness in a country contained under angry clouds? The jigsaws of our personal experience can’t begin with filling in the sky blue corners because the top bits are almost always grey. That’s why we Scots find themselves permanently wrapped up in a duffel coat of resilience and determination. And sometimes a duffel coat.

The weather has its positives of course. It means we huddle together, develop a strong sense of community and an Alex Ferguson toughness. But it certainly doesn’t make us laugh. And because we can’t bare flesh we can’t always bare our souls, look to thoughts of lightness and let our hearts swell. Or write about love?

Think how many rom-coms have emerged in our film history. One. Gregory’s Girl. And he didn’t even get the girl, (although he did end up horizontal dancing with Claire Grogan, which wasn’t an entirely bad result.)

But thanks to the ingrained darkness our writers so often shine. Still Game is an object lesson in cantankerousness. Rab C. Nesbitt turns on the spindle of delicious cynicism. Burnistoun is a lovely shade of bleak. Two Doors Down is clever and caustic, and populated by damaged creatures you wouldn’t have in your own house.

River City is successful because it offers up black comedy alongside blood weddings and gangsterism. And no one, ever, smiled in Taggart.

Our unhappiness has long been cleverly thrown back at us. Peter McDougall fed us a diet of shoulder chips while Irvine Welsh pumped us full of drugs. Yes, Burns wrote love poetry and songs, but driven by his enormous libido, so darker motivation has to be assumed. Robert Louis Stevenson was smart enough to cash in on Scots repression by bringing Mr Hyde onto the scene. And Kidnapped couldn’t have worked without the gung ho and the grim.

Being unhappy works well for us. Alasdair Grey’s great work Lanark featured a depressed character. James Kelman’s seminal How Late It Was featured a tramp who goes blind. And loses his shoes to boot.

In other parts of Britain, female writers love to point a Louboutined toe in the direction of chic lit. But in Scotland the likes of Anna Smith and Denise Mina get wellied into the sewers of the human mind.

Our funniest people have long drawn from the dark well of experience. Kevin Bridges suggests a wicked sneer. Frankie Boyle gives the impression he could poison school milk.

Yes, Jack Milroy once radiated joy but Rikki Fulton was a practising miserablist. Chic Murray and Lex McLean were never going to rival the Chuckle Brothers.

Our desire for unhappiness isn’t always positive however. The national instrument, the bagpipes, is an instrument of torture. And Connolly was right when he mocked folk songs such as Skip The Gaily. Skipping gaily is anathema to our very being.

As for sport, we can’t enjoy the fact Andy rarely looks happy or the inevitable disappointment that comes after national football’s occasional flurries of success.

But for the most part we make the most of our dark demeanour. We should thank the rain and the midges and Calvinism and Catholic guilt because real depth and richness in life can often be found in general discontentment.

Derren Brown asks would you press the button for consistently joyful, which is clearly not real or a bit mad or exhausting, or opt for a robust sense of calmness and balance? He’s on the mark because continuous joy suggests idiocy. And you have to worry about happy people. Tony Blair was a cheerful optimist who cheerfully invaded Iraq. Trump always looks happy.

While it’s all very well appreciating Hockney-blue swimming pool paintings don’t we get so much more from a Turner, or a Landseer? Imagine if The Scream was called the Cheerful Giggle. Would we look twice?

Who knows. Maybe Kezia will be happy now. Maybe she has a bouncy castle in her backdoor. Meanwhile, let’s enjoy our unhappiness. As Woody Allen says “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it’s all over much too soon.”