I actually really appreciate the thought and effort put into your reply here. I will admit freely that my original comment was coming from a place of frustration, no small amount of depression, and desperation. And I think you're absolutely correct that for the average person it's probably more important to worry about your own immediate health and surroundings. It's healthier that way.

The part I disagree with, though, is the idea that just putting on your blinders and ignoring the things you can't change is a fine way to live your life. We, as citizens, have a duty and a responsibility to keep our country in line. We, as human beings, have a duty and a responsibility to be good shepherds of our planet. We, as parents, have a duty and a responsibility to leave a better world behind for our children than the one we inherited. And I can't, and won't, just ignore all that. The universe is not malevolent but it also is not benevolent. It is vast and uncaring far beyond our ability to comprehend it as such, and it is up to us, the thinking, feeling creatures, to forge our future. If we do not act, there will be no action.

Our situation was caused by thinking, feeling human beings, and it will be solved by thinking, feeling human beings and no one else. Or else we will die, and find ourselves as an evolutionary dead-end that tried real hard but didn't quite make it.

So my question then becomes, at the end of the day - if not you or I, then who? If we do not rage against the night, if we do not reach to the sky to pull ourselves out of the hole we've been dug into - then who is going to do it for us? Not God, that's for sure. Not politicians, or soldiers, or celebrities. So who?