That last piece was a bit grim. But it really doesn't have to be. Coming to terms with catastrophe and disaster is a relational process that is dependent on some sort of subjectivity. The process is disastrous for a subjectivity that has a stake in the outcome of the process.
What I mean is that disappointment presupposes some sort of expectation. Granted, it is a healthy expectation that one should continue living. That is a good floor for life experience; after all it is required for life experience in the first place. There are those who can even part themselves from that basic expectation, but that is another matter.
There are plenty of healthy expectations that are just and good and realistic, and there are plenty of expectations that are unrealistic and possibly destructive.
If one expects one's species to spread out to every last corner of the earth, and dominate every last living thing and molecule, and expand indefinitely into space, then yes, one is setting oneself up to be mightily disappointed, a disappointment that is proportionate to the loftiness of the expectation. And yes, this chain of expectations and disappointments are connected to a whole array of real world processes and effects. Expectations that require enormous amounts of concentrated energy necessarily entail taking that energy from everything else on that planet, triggering all manner of disappointments and suffering in regions that have nothing to do with the original expectation.
Disappointment, heartbreak, horror, death, these are all things that come for all of us. But we would also look upon someone who is constantly building up a tottering tower of chairs and desks, climbing atop them, and then repeatedly tumbling down as some kind of fool. And for that matter holding the earth in a deathly embrace may mean you never part from the earth, but it could also mean being covered in dirt, or water, or being trampled upon.
To keep balance with a world in flux, sometimes one moves, sometimes one keeps still, and sometimes one contrives, and so on. Life isn't easy, but one can still find happiness in such a process by coming to terms with what necessarily has to happen, even if it is a disaster or catastrophe coming to fruition after the action of previous generations that one hasn't had any effect on.
