The Matheson Manifesto

Name: Ian Matheson
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

I've been interested in international politics and global ecconomic relationships since high school. Now I'm studying politics full time at SMU while writing and participating in anti-corporate activism.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Oh, who cares.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005


What would it meant to be hate God? To hate the world and believe in God? To hate your place in the world and hate God for putting you in it? To hate the things that befall others either by human hands or "acts of God"? To think that there is no God at all?

When I see the sun move behind a cloud I don't doubt it would return, but I would if I had never seen the sun.

Does hating God mean hating that he does not exist? Hating that it's just us, without guildence, without punishment. Or hating that we DO punish people, who I think have comitted no crime, in the name of God. Does hating God mean hating his inaction or hating those who act in his name?

And when I look back and see ONLY my footprints I have to assume that I have been walking alone.

Does hating God mean feeling worthless, aspiring to nothing, being no one? Does hating God mean hating yourself, your species, your colour, your wallet, your clothes, your computer, your trees, your oceans, your dirt, your rocks, your time, your space, your three dimentions?

And when I see crab on the beach I can imagine it a billion years ago as a small part of what it is now.

And if it is just God I hate then it's the God that ignores the famines, fans the flames, makes the children work harder than the adults, says that 7 million peaces of shrapnell aren't enough, refuses them condoms, spreads bigotry, and consumes all that he surveys in a single thousand year long mouthful.

And if none of that is God then I don't hate God... I hate something else.

To quote a Philosopher, "the meaning of the world lies outside the of world", and so I plan to go looking for it. I mean by this nothing other than that I intend to embark on the greatest expedition any person has ever concieved of: to leave the universe itself with the intent of returning with an ample supply of meaning, enough meaning to sustain the world for all time.

I will need for this journy many prvisions which I do not, myself, possess. Of most explicit importance is an infinite supply of energy, a source for which I have not yet found. It could also be theorized that a craft of some kind may be required. This may be as simple as some basic form of boat or as complex as a jet powered submerciple, depending on the exact nature of the nothingness which is theorized to exists beyond the Universe.

It must also be assumed that myself and a (preferably) small crew would need to sustain ourselves for at least some amount of time in the infinite void. For this we will need exactly half as many jam sandwiches as it would take to feed an infinite amount of people for half of their lives each, or, alternatively, twice as many sandwiches as it would take to feed twice as many people as could possibly cease to exist at any given moment.

Finally, I feel certain some manor of here-to-fore unprecidented uniform is in order. Perhapse something involving many tubes and straps or a great number of zippers. Better yet, shiny silver nobs which make humming noises (either assendingling harmonic or decendingly harmonic). And to finish it all off, a hat with two anteni so that we may be better equipt to comunicate with any form of absense of life we encounter.

The cost for this is not yet known and it may be that it can not even be quantified until we can return with sufficient meaning to contextualize the output. It is for this reason that we should leave quickly so as to hasten us towards a time in which we will know what we have spent on knowing what we have spent.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005


It's easy to look around and say "Holy shit, what the FUCK happened to those THREE YEARS in which I intended to be in school?" but then I realize that in those three years I lived in environments that taught me things I wouldn't otherwise have know. And a two bedroom appartment and a job at a bottle depot is as different from a party-house full of girls as it is from being the kid who failed the grade but ending up having the best year of his life while still almost failing again. And I think about the fact that I could technically be said to have talked my way into University and that makes me feel proud in a really self afronting kind of way. So I'm either smart or crafty and I'm told that works just as well. But I'm also bored most of the time. I keep thinking "I like this feild of study but this stuff is useless to me right now." But really that just means it might be useful later. And later I'll get to study something I like now. So that's kind of where I am right now. Waiting for what I'm doing to be vindicated by what I'm about to do. But that's overstating the mater.

Monday, December 05, 2005

And I don'teven remember why I chose that book but I remeber thinking how thin the pages were. I mean, now it seems ironic given what I found. One page -- just one out of thousands -- was split on one corner. I studied it and decided to pull at it. As it tore one page into two pages, half the thickness I found new words inbetween the pages, on the inside. I realized I could tear every page in the same way, revealing a whole new book.
Now, I don't really read latin so what I'm about to say is just a guess, but there were detailed drawings, a lot like a seriese of scientific diagrams... and they all showed the same thing. I don't read latin but what else looks like that? What moves like that? I knew what I was looking at.
What got me was the detail. The intricate work and complex layouts to depict the most basic parts of their anatomy. I was scared that I couldn't disprove what I saw.

Friday, September 23, 2005


Outer Peace

Yeah, so I actually met Buddha on the road yesterday. He was just hanging out so I decided to ask him about that saying "If you see Buddha on the road kill him." He said it he had no idea how that got started and that it had caused him a lot of problems. I asked him what he was up to these days and he said "You're looking at it." It thought this was kind of a weird thing for a long dead religious figure to say so I asked him what he meant. He asked me why people were always asking him questions and I said that I really didn't know. He apologized then and offered me inner peace. I thought about it but I knew there was a gram of weed waiting for me at home that might get smoked without me. In retrospect I think I made the wrong choice but I don't really regret it. I can rent inner peace at ten bucks a gram.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Keep On Rockin'

I'm glad I live in a counrty where the individual is granted so many rights freedoms. Like the freedom to work whatever jobs happen to be avaliable for what is generaly a subsistance levle income. Or the right to forgo employment in favor of paying thousands for a higher education. And the freedom to take as long as I like in paying back the loans I took out to afford that education (at whatever intrest rate is considered acceptable by the people to whom I owe money). And the right to take up residence in any part of the country that isn't in a severe state of econimic decline (if I can find a job there). And the freedom from prejudice, bigotry, sexism, religious intolerance, or homophobia (unless I am a member of one of the groups these freedoms were created to protect). I'm glad I have the freedom of association (as long as the people watching me like who I'm associatng with). And the right to assemble and be heard, even if that right is cut short by the mandate of the police to maintain order at all times (except when they are the ones causing the disorder). Most of all I'm glad to have the right to all the corporate made, constantly advertized, over priced, over hyped, saturated fat saturated, sweatshop made CRAP that gets me through each and every day without crying too much.


But all sarcasm aside, we're still a hell of a lot better off than all those poor fuckers in the third world who make everything we own.

In closing, I'm gonna give a shout out to all the secret service people reading this right now. Keep on protecting us from ourselves.


It's three a.m., I'm stoned, a cat that's apparently been in my house all day is triggering my alergies, I learned how to play Smoke On The Water (cause it's easy), I found out I probably can go to school, and I'm watching Futurama. I'm too tired to write more. Especially since I still need to find a picture. I hope it's good.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005


My pay stub says $346.26. My rent is $400. My account is empty because I'm getting fewer hours than I need in order to break even. I got another job but they layed me off without any particular reason after stringing me along for 2 weeks thinking I didn't have to find a job for september. I wanted to quit back when I still had a lot of savings so I could live off that and look for another job full time. However I was also in the process of applying for apartments which meant people wanted to know what my job was and how much I made. I didn't want them to hear that I was either unemployed or new at a minimum wage job so I didn't quit. Now, thanks to two corporate chains and the nature of our housing system (such as it is) I will have to beg for money from my parents. Thank you capitalism, the system that succedes by failing.