Dear Mr Prime Minister,


I do not expect a reply to this letter.

I know that you are a very busy man with many important and pressing issues on his mind and very little time to devote to frivolities. I also know that a friend of mine wrote to the Mayor of our fair city (Halifax) and received no reply. Given that the Mayor had no time to spare, it seems reasonable to assume that you would have even less.

I am not living in Halifax at the moment. I am uncertain as to whether I will ever go back. There is very little left for me there - most of my friends and family have left or are planning to leave and the job market is very tight. Still, I am not certain that my decision to move to Montreal (where I currently reside) was the right one. I know even less people here.

Adjusting to life in a new city has been difficult for me. I believe that one of the great tragedies of urban life is the way that it keeps people apart emotionally while pressing them together physically. Whenever I go out, I find myself being jostled by strangers. I also believe that cell phones can only serve to exacerbate this effect. However bad it is to be jostled by strangers, it is even worse to be jostled by strangers who are yelling into tiny electronic boxes.

One neat thing that I have discovered: If you put a stamp and an address on the back of a photograph and mail it, the postal service will treat it exactly as if it were a post card. Just think! Every postcard that I send is totally unique in the world (unless I got doubles printed).

My degree is in Philosophy. Sadly, this has not made it any easier for me to figure out the point of life. If anything, it has confused the issue. I have learned that the world is a very wonderful and scary place. No one understands it.

I am considering getting a tattoo of a black pawn on my left shoulder. If I were to do this, it would be an act of both defiance and submission. I like my symbols to be multi-faceted and rich in meaning.

I think it would be funny to supplement my legitimate degree with a mail-order degree from one of those places that offer degrees based on my Life Experience. The problem is that I don't know what degree my life experience might qualify me for. Perhaps a BA in humility or a BSc in human dynamics. I confess that if I were to receive either degree, it would not be with honours.


In closing, Mr Prime Minister, I would like to urge you - if you have not already done so - to go and see the film "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain" (directed by Jean-Pierre Feunet). It is, in my opinion, the best movie to have been released all of last year.


Hope you are well,
Tim Maly