Walking around the great city of Toronto

A friend of mine recently spent a short time living in downtown Toronto and his thoughts of that experience were not very favourable. Sure there is a lot to do in the land of failed sports teams for those who have the money to do any of it. Those with limited funds can still find things to do providing they can afford the $6 round trip on the TTC or don’t mind spending half the day walking to where they want to go and back. But that is not really the point of this.

The one thing that my friend commented on is something I have grown used to and perhaps even become a part of while traveling or wandering downtown. He said that everyone walked with their heads down and never made eye contact with anyone else. On the occasions he tried to exchange pleasantries with any passerby they either ignored him altogether or gave him a look as if he belonged in the looney bin or might rob them. People so wrapped up in their self; so entrenched in the greed and self importance that has infected what was once a great city that they cannot even be pleasant to their fellow citizens.

This is all too familiar to me. Sure I have been sucked into the negativity that seems to seep up through the pavement of the cracked sidewalks and pot-holed streets and have long ago stopped trying to make eye contact with everyone I pass by; I have even gotten to the point where I do not get out of the way of people who are too busy in themselves to notice anything other then their own two feet or their blackberry but I try to be pleasant to those who have yet to succumb to the poison and still knows how to be friendly.

Let’s just hope this is not the way of the future or the world will become a really lonely place.