This is not a story of how utopias are made. Write that story in your head, then compare and contrast. Maybe read up on 20th century torture.
I lived the good life for a while, then I got pushed to the fringe, and now I'm somewhere in between. The worst I saw was nothing compared to the worst there has been, but it was bad enough to make one thing very, very clear: happiness stands on the back of suffering.
You may think that your question is innocent, that your optimism is an answer. In reality, you're just spitting in the face of less fortunate people. Imagine looking an abused child in the eyes and saying "is reality that harsh?" Or saying that to homeless people. Maybe go find a couple HK protesters who have vanished, I'm sure they're having a great time.
Good worlds don't let this shit happen. It's not a few people slipping through the cracks, it's a fucking dystopia.
It sounds like you're on the tail end of existentialism, which is good. It does keep going for a while passed that.
Seems like you may be heading towards Absurdism. If so, I recommend Optimistic Nihilism instead. It's much less of a kick in the shins to the envious tortured souls you never notice watching you.
> In the moment it sucks, but over time I look back and see a beautiful existence.
vs.
> Imagine looking an abused child in the eyes and saying "is reality that harsh?"
2. Beauty can exist in harsh realities.
I don't think the world is that cruel. I think people, both individually and as a group, are tremendously cruel and capable of terrible things that in turn make the world cruel.
In short, to borrow the words of Rorschach from Watchmen, “...God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the world this way. We do.”
As much as I detest things like the Men's Rights movement and MGTOW and other such groups, they've sprung up largely to fill the void left by the various (and rightful) excisions made into masculinity by progressive politics. We've learned how much of what was traditionally defined as masculine was not only sexist, but also just straight up harmful, both to men and everyone else. The problem is we set about destroying these elements of masculinity without then replacing them with something else, and nature abhors a vacuum. So now we have large sects of male demographics leaning into the toxicity, because having a bad identity is better than having no identity.
If I have one serious complaint with progressives, it's that the majority seem to regard men as privileged so far beyond everyone else that they have no legitimate complaints, and it's bullshit. And not only is it bullshit, it's ultimately self-defeating. With each lonely young man who is ignored and cast out of any kind of progressive minded group, the alt-right and MRA activists gain another pawn, easily radicalized against those who hate him when he himself has done nothing wrong.
So no, I don't think reality is that harsh. I think humans are harsh.