Wake up, we're here

During the Iraq war I realized that all the nations of the earth were living in the apartment complex with us here and we get on well. We have our differences and so it should be but we live together and there are no small wars. We all talk a lot together and are constantly surprised by our similarities.

I am not an idealist, thinking the world can live together in perfect harmony, even within a family life can be difficult. There are sharks and small fish everywhere. But I think that when people realize that they ache the same, feel lonely, disappointed, dance for joy and laugh the same despite their colour/religion/status differences, maybe this understanding will make small differences in our small communities everywhere.

I distributed forms that people filled out. I collected the lists of all their good and bad memories and then made up stories to express the emotions associated with the memories listed. The stories are written in the “I” form which tell a lifetime of memories from birth to death. It is written as one life, a human life, our lives irrelevant of whether the memory stems from a male or female, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, black, white or yellow. We can all see our differences. I hope by reading the book each person can feel our sameness, our human nature.