A Fraction of the Whole

by Steve Toltz

said, ‘I think you should find whoever does your thinking for you and ask them to update.’

soul is anything other than the romantic name we have given to consciousness so we can believe it doesn’t tear or stain.

stultified

insurmountable

perturbed

haggard

umpteenth

Dad always maintained that people don’t go on journeys at all but spend a lifetime searching for and gathering evidence to rationalise the beliefs they’ve held in their hearts since day one. They have new revelations, certainly, but these rarely shatter their core belief structure – they just build on it. He believed that if the base remains intact, it doesn’t matter what you build on it, it is not a journey at all. It is just layering. He didn’t believe that anyone ever started from scratch. ‘People aren’t looking for answers,’ he

preferred the mystery to the miracle,

This is a reflection of how we see ourselves. We have no trouble believing that the worst creature who has done the most harm is a man, but we absolutely cannot believe that the best creature, who tries to inspire imagination, creativity and empathy, can be one of us. We just don’t think that highly of ourselves, but we happily think that low.