How has 20 months of pandemic changed you personally?

I'm 40, I feel like I've had a good, relatively free life, and I largely accept that is over and mostly feel bad for younger people who have to grow up in the fallout of the over reaction we've had.

Imagine dating, going to university, getting married, celebrating things with your family, all under masks and restrictions, having to show a vaccine pass wherever you go, and hysteria from all sides about whatever the covid news of the week is. Or worse, living and working over video chat.

Personally, I'm done, but it's like we've all collectively said fuck you to the younger generation.

That, and I've lost any respect or feeling of civic responsibility towards the government. The pandemic has been handled so badly, oscillating between absurd overreaction and trying to talk away poor response (for example where I am we had huge delays in vaccine availability), all while trying to exert a completely inappropriate level of control over what people do. I no longer feel like a part of society and feel like the government and my countrymen have broken any social compact we have and I don't owe them anything.

I'm now 58, I got sick last March, and have (it seems, there is no definitive test) Long Covid. Going grocery shopping is all the activity I can handle for a day. I started out resting, and hoping to get better... somewhere along the line I started to accept this as my new really bad normal.

I am now faced with jumping back into the world of software development, at 58. Things have changed since my last full time programming job. Windows 3.1 and Delphi aren't the hot ticket any more. ;-)

On the plus side, GIT and GitHub are awesome. Saving source code to sequentially numbered zip files on floppy disks, every time I made a big change, sucked!

I'm 19 now and sort of feel robbed. The first year if this thing, I remember being rushed home and thinking this would blow over in a week, then 2, then a month, then just settling into this perpetual feeling of melancholy while I missed prom, graduation, welcoming ceremonies at university and having to stay in a shitty hotel because of social distancing overflow. I generally have a numbness to this feeling of missing out and have realized that not having these moments will remove the romanticized feelings people often have for this time later in life. I've mainly used this time to do all of those side projects I never finished, plus some new things. So in short, I've grown in my knowledge, but have become more cynical to a fault

Some thoughts...

I've always worked remote so it isn't a big impact there.

It has created a further love of nature and the ability to be outdoors year long. My wife and I have done a lot more to get out every day, and we lean more toward living somewhere that stays warmish in the summer.

I was in Spain for the strict lockdown in 2020 and Portugal for the strict lockdown winter 2021 and that gave me a lot of hope in humans. The way people came together to protect their societies with spirit and support was awesome. It was a joy to clap every night for Spanish doctors and nurses. And, I am utterly impressed with both Spain and Portugal for taking care of their older citizens.

I'm 45 and even more contemptuous of my compatriots than I was before. I think it has further accelerated the potential collapse of the United States as a functioning state and find myself very alone between the people who want to deny reality about vaccines and the disease and the one hand and the others who refuse to hear anything except bad news. If you would have told me 2 years ago we'd still be in this, I would have left the country and stayed.

"Movie theatres might not be the problem compared to the orgies"

Yeah human connection has been interesting, I'm finding people are very open to it. I'm finding many people are having a nihilistic-but-not-depressed view (there is a specific word for that but I can't find it).

I find that I like that at-risk populations are not the people I encounter, as they stay home whether the government is involved or not (and the private sector is more conducive to that now for more job types).

So its this two-tiered world of fit people not likely to experience any symptoms, and everyone else. The former is partying, even in the most restrictive counties and states in the US, as this is also allowed unrestricted, whereas for others almost nothing has changed for 2 years. For example, reading the sister comments here suggest there are many people that have not reintegrated into society whether its from disruptions of social circles and the monotony of remote work, to fear, to being in an at risk population, to being around or living with people in at risk populations. And at this point there's been a branch of which nodes in the network connect at all.

Federal, most State, and local governments continue to act inappropriately and can no longer be respected to do anything other than theater. This has become a giant show like the airport TSA theater.

Hawaii is done for my tourist dollars. I cancelled Hawaii trips and we spent our money in Florida and Texas.

I now often think, 'No. I do not consent.'

I see reports of 1300+ people dying horrible, excruciating deaths by suffocation due to the virus daily (in the U.S.) and don't even slow down. Instead I move on to the next clickbait / eye candy.

At least I now have some idea of what it must have been like to see all those daily death tolls in the paper during WW II.

Working in a basement is not going to be good for me long term. I need daylight.

As you said, humans need humans. I mean, I'm an introvert. I don't need humans 24/7. I need them more than zero, though.

If I do have to quarantine, my wife is the one I most want to quarantine with.

The pandemic experience is very subjective and personal. For some, it is a horrible experience especially if someone close to them died because of the virus. In light of that, trying not to be insensitive, I would unequivocally say that it has been a overwhelmingly positive experience for me.

I live in a developing country with one of the world's worst traffic congestion; simply going to the office and back takes 4 hours minimum. Just being spared from the commute has made my life so much better.

Working from my home instead of an open office is again so much better. I can get up from my chair, take small breaks, etc.. without worrying if I look like I'm not working.

It's never made sense to me, especially for knowledge work, why people need to go to the office everyday just to sit in front of a computer. It seems to be a relic of a bygone manufacturing era where-in for factory workers, it was essential that everyone was in the factory for the assembly-line. For knowledge work, this is not a requirement, and knowledge workers usually do better when they can be left alone and just collaborate asynchronously.

The biggest gain from computers is that they have freed us from repetitive work. Computers can just be programmed once and they can repeat themselves perfectly until infinity. But the typical work day pre-pandemic was just about turning knowledge workers into robots; wake-up, go to the office, sit in front of the computer and try not to look idle then repeat until death.

Being freed from working in the office allows for so much greater flexibility. One can chat with family during small breaks, have lunch with family instead of co-workers, or stay-up late reading something interesting without sacrificing work the next day, since there is a lot less worry about being late for work.

Some other realization is that some behaviours are not really essential. Pre-pandemic, entertainment like NBA seemed so important but then with the pandemic, NBA seemed to just be so trivial. There was no NBA for a season and people adjusted easily.

In line with that, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of scientists over entertainers. Lebron James can't punch a virus in the face but a global team of scientists can make a vaccine to save lives. This shift in recognition of the value of scientists will reap dividends for humanity later on I bet.

The lockdown, for a short-period, turned everyone into Hikikomori. Instead of being looked-down upon for staying at home, staying at home was suddenly the smart and social thing to do. There was a shift in social acceptability with regards to staying at home. The urge, habit and routine to go-out to a mall was replaced with just staying at home and spending time on Digital spaces like Discord. The mall operators lost a lot of money but overall, I think this is a positive change with less gas consumption, less traffic, less carbon emissions, etc..

The pandemic has proven that online-first is feasible. The old ways of working and even of education can change. Traditional education also didn't make sense to me. Again, growing-up, just going to school and back home took many many hours because of the terrible traffic. Why need to spend so much time just to sit in-front of a teacher who is just sharing generic knowledge that can be easily learned via a computer? I'd rather just spend time at home with family and learn on my own with maybe a teacher to guide and challenge me.

I'm also a bit anti-social and so putting 40 kids into a small room never seemed appealing to me. I guess it can be said that school is a great place to learn how to socialize but I think there should be a better way to go about it. The prevalence of school bullying and school shootings is an indicator I think of a broken system.

Again the model of one teacher and 40 students again seem to be just a relic of an older era when knowledge was scarce. This model makes sense in the pre-computer times, when books were expensive and knowledgeable teachers were rare and so it made sense to group students together to learn from the knowledgeable teacher. But in this day and age, with so much educational material accessible on-line, this model is no longer necessary.

Another change with the pandemic is changing habits. For a long-period, people couldn't go to their favourite restaurants but people adjusted easily. Maybe instead of spending on an expensive restaurant meal, people would just learn to cook and eat at home.

In short, Pandemic has made some things more essential (like online shopping) while others are no longer viewed as essential (like going to the office every day) and I'm optimistic it could lead to a new and better world.