Lament

So I finished reading Margaret Atwood's Surfacing last night.
It absolutely pains me to admit that I don't think I really understood it. I mean, I kind of understood it, I just didn't get it.
Maybe it was because I found myself skimming some passages, there was a lot of flowery imagery supposedly critiquing modern society and our place in it...but...but...I feel dumber.
Dumbed down by all the reality shows I don't watch but am forced to acknowledge exist and therefore expunge intelligence, the lack of real literature I've read and the fact that I have to deal with so many incompetent people on a daily basis.
I've become defective.