I find it interesting you namecheck Optimistic Nihilism because that's largely where I'm at. And I'm sorry but you just aren't presenting much here that's intrinsic, naturally occurring harshness but instead the manifestations of cruel people, which is exactly what I posted about in the first place.

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.”