As Robert Anton Wilson said, "Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history." I think this reaction is partially unavoidable, because the world really is fucked up. To understand it fully is to realize how unjust and nonsensical it really is. But for me, I try to stay optimistic by focusing on larger trends, like automation and ephemeralization, open source projects, life extension, increased educational opportunity, free information available through online courses, etc. The world is messed up but I think we are getting closer to destabilizing the ingrained power structures. The next 100 years are going to be a very wild ride but I think everything will turn out ok. You can't stop the process now, information will continue to increase and spread, it will be increasingly difficult to censor and prevent communication, and individuals will be able to greatly magnify their efforts with technology.
What has gotten my goat the most, as my life has progressed, was realizing just how ignorant a massive portion of the world is, for whatever reasons under their control or not and how much suffering ignorance causes. Surely, for example, you've realized by now that the various conflicts going on in super-poor parts of the world are mostly carried out by people who are very much characterized by things that go along with poverty, like being ill, uneducated, steeped in superstition of various sorts, unhappy, and surrounded by tons of crime. People still kill other people for... 'witchcraft'. As a result I've kind of stopped being terribly humanitarian.I think this reaction is partially unavoidable, because the world really is fucked up. To understand it fully is to realize how unjust and nonsensical it really is.