I'm 20 years out of college, and I feel the same way. At my best, I remember to scale my energy according to proximity: things nearer to me get more energy. Part of the problem is that we're presented with a parade of information about stuff that isn't happening here, around me. That, coupled with the aching feeling that you're a bad person if you don't pay attention to what's happening in the world, even its far away. That is really sick, because it's guilting you into paying attention to stuff you cannot, by definition, control.

And then we, the techno-futurists, don't want to deal with what's in front of us because its too small, doesn't scale, or because this problem will go away once we reach the economic Singularity or have flying cars or whatever utopian dream is in fashion.

Personally, I think we need better systems to leverage people's real, concrete pain into actionable change. Like, you should be able to donate money or time to fixing the things that really hurt you. Maybe its the DMV. Or maybe its traffic court. Or maybe its a late fee on a credit card. Or maybe its finding out that a fact you believed was made up. Right now, everything is so siloed. Imagine if everyone hurt by the DMV could pledge money to fix the problem.