SANJAY SAYS

Think You Can Handle the Truth?

A unified theory of everything

Don’t worry, they’ll misquote us anyway

When I was in second year university, Larry joined my circle of friends as part of an engineering study group. He smiled easily, struggled with differential equations, and wore a lot of striped shirts. But what you remembered about Larry after any lengthy conversation with him was that he was an evangelical Christian. “God will provide,” and “The Lord leads the way,” would drop into otherwise divinity-free dialog.

“Larry,” I asked after a few weeks of this, “You know all this God stuff just bounces off of us right? Why do you keep talking about it?”

I still remember his answer, four decades later.

“Sanjay, it’s like I was at the Student Union building up the hill and there’s this guy handing out $100 bills to anyone he sees. You’re my friends, and I want you to get your $100 bill, so I keep telling you about it, even though you don’t believe me.”

I don’t remember what I said in response, but I do remember going to the Student Union building later that day and there was no guy handing out $100 bills.

Fast forward to 2025 and the Student Union building has become the Hotel X in downtown Toronto, where I just spent five days with Robert Scheinfeld, author of Busting Loose…