Not OP, but modern philosophy has shifted pretty heavily away from the metaphysical, and most discussions require some amount of empiricism to hold any actual value.

Basically if the claims you're making can't be verified (or if they cannot be falsified) then they're generally disregarded, or they're analyzed further to see if there's any actual truth that can be verified/useful.

Meditations is not that. It's mostly a collection of bold statements that worked specifically for him. But even though they worked for this grand emperor, that doesn't mean they will work for you, or that they are the most correct thing to do, or that they're even relevant in a modern context.

I would say take Meditations as the musings of a pretty decent emperor, and do what people do with most religious/self help texts and pick the parts that apply to you.

And keep in mind that you're not a Roman emperor with advisors and a practically endless supply of wealth, and the ability to basically do what you want anyway.

And then read Hume, Locke, Russel, and my favorite: AJ Ayer.

My only critique is that I don't know what you're saying at all because you haven't really defined what you mean when you say the word 'happiness'.

And since your central thesis is based around the claim that "happiness is a nihilistic ideal," we have no idea what point you're trying to make, and cannot refute anything you say.

Yeah this article fails where a lot of writers of philosophy fail: no clear definition of terms.

It feels like some terms are interchangeable with others, most notably the terms 'nihilism', and 'happiness' don't feel like they're actually referring to my understanding of these words.

Not only that, but they want to virtue signal and say, "oh my god, look at how high the suicide rate is for these trans people! We need to convert them immediately so that they don't kill themselves, because we care"