THE WORLD should look different today, but it does not. The streets look much the same as they did Tuesday, Monday and many days before. The leaves are piling in the gutters and kicked aside by children on their way to meet the school bus. A wet wind gusts out of the south, promising one more day of warm weather before autumn reality returns.

On the day after Barack Obama’s election, San Francisco and the nation are physically unchanged, and that seems wrong.

It seems wrong because so many things have changed in the past 24 hours — expectations, assumptions and old, worn-out certainties.

None of that is visible today, because little has changed in the world:

Only hearts and minds.