Perspective is crucial, and today The Age would like to offer some to offset the bleakness many are feeling.
But first, some context. The growing global gloom is palpable and understandable. A tsunami of buyer's remorse is sweeping across the US only days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, a person who has so far appeared unfit for the role.
Less than two weeks into his tenure, the early termination of which is already seriously being speculated upon, a Gallup poll indicates a majority of Americans disapprove of their new president. It took his predecessor 936 days to cross that line, George W. Bush 1205, Bill Clinton 573, George Bush Snr 1336 and Ronald Reagan 727.
The despair is being shared by many millions around the world, citizens concerned that the volatile new president is a threat to the wellbeing of people everywhere. Mr Trump's heavy-handed edicts on immigration and abortion; his sabre-rattling on China; his disdain for established climate science; his long-range flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a shameless demagogue; and his recourse to discredited policies of economic protectionism are indeed cause for concern.
But people should take succour from the fact there are strong constitutional and practical checks and balances on any US president's power. Further, and in a way he had not intended, Mr Trump is proving a uniting force in a nation that mostly disapproves of him, and also where about 3 million more people voted for his opponent than voted for him.
Across America and around the world, through protests and petitions, people are rising up against his folly.
However, such emerging unity, such a surging show of collective decency, is not the main reason to be cheerful. The perspective we would like to inject is historical and humanistic, rather than political and nationalistic.
Consider, if you will, the following evidence that most individuals are kind, even altruistic, most of the time, and that the collective wit and wisdom of the crowd has been steadily and substantially making the world a better place.
Much of this evidence reflects efforts under the auspices of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The program began in 2000, and has, well, united nations in the greatest anti-poverty effort in history.
The infant mortality rate and the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth have halved in the past quarter of a century. Since 1990, when the global population was about 5.2 billion, the number of people living on the poverty line of $1.25 a day or less has fallen from 1.9 billion to about 800 million, even though the global population has grown to about 7.5 billion.
Associated with this, the proportion of the world's population without sufficient food has plunged.
Between 1990 and 2010, as many as 2.6 billion people got access to clean drinking water, which means the UN goal was reached five years early. (There are, though, still 650 million in need of such access.) In the 15 years to 2015, the number of new HIV infections fell by almost half.
Democracy has spread, making the world a more open, free and safe place, while deaths from wars are at a historical low and life expectancy continues to increase. Foreign development assistance from rich countries to poor ones has leapt.
Economic growth has surged throughout the world – and here in Australia, an entire generation has never experienced a recession.
The world can seem darker than it really is. It is likely to keep improving – because most real power and change come from the bottom up, not from high political office. And that is a good thing.
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