Why this fascination for depressing stories lately?

[kentauros]

15. I haven't read any new fiction in a long time.

The last thing I read (or am still reading) is by A.E. van Vogt, Transgalactic, from 1939. It is post-apocalyptic, but on the order of at least 5000 years removed from our present day. There's nothing of our present-day society with which to compare or cause depression. It's like reading not only an alternate future, but an alternate Earth entirely

And I've still got my own story to finish, once I sort out what gets included of what I've already written and what I still need to write.