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Taṇhā is the fundamental mistake the human mind makes when trying to achieve happiness. Tanha is an unquenchable thirst for lower forms of excitement and happiness, which in today's society usually last for no more than a day, and often bring happiness for mere minutes or seconds. The fallacy of tanha is that, recalling that it brought you moments of happiness in the past, you assume that it will lead to lasting happiness in your life. Our minds draw this conclusion based on the way we see patterns in everything, but tanha is a false pattern.
Why tanha is dumb
When you look back at your life, what things will make you feel that it was worth it? The time that you spent watching YouTube movies, eating desserts, making money at menial service jobs so that you could buy video games? And yet nearly everyone in our civilization does these things. Tanha drives people to do selfish and pointless things.
Simple forms of tanha
Intelligent people can recognize the simplest forms of tanha, and these are widely protested, although little action can be taken about them. For example, materialism is a basic type of tanha: you buy something on impulse and you are happy for several minutes, then you get buyer's remorse (unless if you are a shopaholic, in which case you pretend to feel pride for your silly purchase). But ending capitalism isn't the right solution; there are infinite forms of desire we can channel our tanha into.
Eating bad food is another kind of tanha. I was reading an article on cooking in a Buddhist temple today during lunchtime. When you eat junk food, the article pointed out, you are nothing more than a slave to your digestive tract, satisfying your stomach's reptilian desires rather than appealing to your brain. I looked at my hot dog, fries, Dr. Pepper, milk, cookie, and brownie, which I had been chowing down on, and suddenly I felt rather guilty. Of course, I couldn't just throw the food out at that point, so I had to eat it while knowing full well the extent of my mindlessness. It took a grueling half-hour. Let me tell you, nothing is worse than consciously participating in tanha!
Erotic lust is a tanha which few view positively, except for hedonists. I refer, of course, to pornography and desire for meaningless sex, not desire for love, which is a positive thing (although it, too, must be tamed during times of loneliness).
Complex forms of tanha
The lusts for fame and infamy are both caused by tanha. There's an obvious ego boost when you see that you have an audience, or that someone has reviewed your work or responded to you. But there is no lasting happiness in this; you will only desire to gain a larger audience and more press.
I don't understand many of the complex forms of tanha so I don't feel qualified to write about them here.