Comment by andsoitis

At 24 this feeling is nearly universal across generations. Every cohort encounters the scale of the world right around that age and finds it staggering.

If I may suggest some books for you that can help you get answers on some of these themes:

"Was it always like this"?

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. About 14th-century Europe: plague, schism, war, economic collapse, social breakdown. Tuchman wrote it partly to show her own generation that calamitous centuries are a recurring feature.

"Meaning"

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Written by a Holocaust survivor. The core insight is that meaning is something you construct, not something the world owes you. Can land hard if you are feeling crushed by macro forces.