@Val Killmore,
Man your idea of life depresses my heart. You must have had a scarring childhood (I'm not joking around at that matter either).
You should take life minute by minute rather than take the "grand scheme of things" and stress out about the future.
Every day life may not be good, but you should start finding some good in everyday life.
AIDS or other diseases are just defeats that one may face in life, but the point that I'm trying to make is to be not defeated, or you'll be disappointed by the things that you didn't do, sitting around brooding and being glum, or killing yourself.
Of all the difficult discipline, endurance is the hardest, so don't look down on people with faulty reasoned hope, but give them credit for enduring and fighting on.
And there is nothing wrong with setting your hopes very high, higher than the mountains, even if it is crushed, because then you know that you gave it all your best.
You should take advise from the great artist Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that it is too low and we reach it"