An oldie but a goodie

"Much of what I saw terrified me, yet I was intensely happy, perhaps because my fear was the closest thing I'd felt in months to a genuine emotion, but also because I'd already fallen in love with the excess, the overabundance: too many people, too much to see, too much noise, too many bright colors. It seemed less like overload than replenishment after the sensory-deprivation tank in which I'd been living."

"Going Native" by Francine Prose