Pangloss sometimes said to Candide:
"There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts."
"All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."
The more horrors in the world, the more sanity depends on the tight focus of one's life. This is not to put your head in the sand but to put in perspective what is under your control and what is not. Our asylums (what's left of them -- the public streets are the new asylums) are filled with folks who can't make this distinction, the most sensitive among us, who cannot block out the horrors of the world. Because if you pay attention to the "big picture," it will drive you crazy.
The advantage of earlier times was that the big picture was far away, in time and distance. Lincoln gets killed and you find out about it weeks later in the west. Now all the horrors of the world are in our living rooms via CNN and the rest.
You have to keep a tight focus, care about the morality within the grasp of your own experience, and move on.
Let us cultivate our garden.
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