I realized about a week ago that there were plenty of examples of people behaving really really badly-- overwhelming stores during "senior time", age be damned, because they figured there would be more stuff, millenials cackling into their memes about the "boomer remover", even younger people flocking together for fun, only to spread the virus in their respective homes (and sure, no politics, but, like, all that).
But then there are as many or more examples of people coming together, behaving altruistically, uniting as a community, looking out for the helpless, volunteering, etc. Or, you know, these guys:
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...demic/2333487/ "Invisible Hands", two twenty-somethings that got 13000 volunteers to deliver food and medicine to the elderly and at risk.
And I have a choice which I pay attention to. The dark, thrill-seeking part of me wants to obsessively gaze into the maw of terribleness. But I have a better self, one who wants to focus on being helpful, talking to my family, smiling and nodding at the people I pass on the street (even as I dodge out of the way). I realize I don't exactly live in "America" at the moment, I live in Rockridge, a neighborhood in North Oakland. And kindness can be a different kind of transmissible enitity.