It's different in the sense that there was a forced reckoning of idealism vs. ground truth. We learned a great deal more about our family, friends, and neighbors. Sure, they may still be as outwardly friendly as before, but many of them, far too many, aggressively support some really heinous things.

I don't want to venture into off-topic political stuff here. And, let's just acknowledge that everything about the pandemic has sucked pretty much whoever you are; the number of dead people, the even greater number of people who have suffered in some other way, whether through illness or isolation or the loss of employment or business or time at school with friends and classmates. You can pick pretty much any aspect of the pandemic and have valid criticisms for how it was handled.

But the worst part of it all was how people reacted to it. That public health and safety were perverted into political identities. That so many people became so aggressively opposed to the welfare of others.

It wasn't a small, isolated thing, and I don't think people should be described as good, and caring, and loving, while they identify with and support so many terrible things.