For some time I've been feeling a bit depressed about the state of the outside world with all its horrors and brutality and inhumanity.
Then it came to me that actually I know next to nothing of the outside world. It's so complex and intricate and enormous that I can't possibly know more than a minute fraction of it.
I might think I know all about (for example) climate change or the polar ice cap or deforestation but I'm kidding myself.
Even what I do know is mostly what the media tells me. And that's often highly suspect. Firstly they only tell us what they think is important, secondly they put their particular slant on it, and thirdly they sensationalise everything. Which means even that tiny bit of knowledge is very unreliable.
So what I refer to as the "outside world" is either a heavily filtered media offering or my own mental picture of the outside world. Neither of those is anything but a sketchy idea of the real thing.
In which case feeling depressed about the outside world is irrational because I'll never have a complete picture of it, and I'm therefore feeling depressed about something that's mostly unknown and unknowable.
So I should stop feeling depressed about the "outside world" and save my dejection for something manifest and tangible.
Simples!