How do you cope with a world that is, honestly, mostly bad?

As a kid you assume the world is generally good with some anomalous bad stuff in it, because otherwise what would be the point of being alive, right?

Then you grow up and realize, no, it’s actually bad with some anomalous good stuff. Like love, cake, and kittens. But the gist of the world, for every species, runs on exploitation, inequality, oppression, greed, competition, selfishness, pain, fear, and the constant struggle just to survive.

Even things you love, like Disney, are rooted in capitalism and commercialism. Every purchase we make is making some filthy rich executive richer, while the employees at the bottom make pennies.

In every corner of the globe, women are oppressed to some degree or another. In every culture, animals are tortured and murdered for taste buds. Our beautiful planet is being destroyed by greed.

How do I just… brush that off? How can I find enough reason to get up every day and keep participating in it?

I’ve tried. I’ve tried to make connections within various communities, all with the end result of feeling isolated and disappointed… something always feeling not right. I don’t think I’m striving for perfection, but I still haven’t found a place I feel comfortable. I’m not vegan enough to fit in with the ~Vegans~. I no longer qualify as gay enough to belong with the gays, and certainly not bi enough to feel any connection with typical “bi” people who are all but shunned in the LGB world. I guess fitting in shouldn’t matter to me but we’re social creatures and it’s human nature, it’s a need and it matters.

How do I face this? How much more of my life will be spent in anger and fear and longing?