Toronto became a particularly intense target for my ennui. I’d lived in the city my entire life, but suddenly its culture began to feel oppressive, and its preoccupations with media and money and real estate struck me as shallow and empty. The chattering classes chattered, and my eyes glazed over. I had no interest in competitive conversations or self-conscious affectations, and little patience for the conspicuous consumption and narcissistic obsessions of our age that accosted me at every turn. I couldn’t pick up the Style section of the Globe and Mail without profound feelings of revulsion.
No doubt my disenchantment was merely a projection on my part, having less to do with Toronto’s perceived failings than with my own sense of stuckness, but I continued to feel dislocated and blank. Close friends provided solace; otherwise, I was at sea.
-- Wendy Dennis, writing in the Summer 2008 issue of The Walrus
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