Two local entrepreneurs with a taste for travel are launching a book project they hope will inspire conversation and form world-wide connections.
Derek Miller and Jasem Dulany are in their mid-twenties and have traveled to Dubai, South Korea, Italy, and the Czech Republic. Everywhere they go, people want to discuss basic human questions. Last fall, they decided to collect some answers and photographs from wide ranging locations and present them in a glossy book. Dulany describes why they’re calling the project “One Hundred Marbles:”
Dulany: “That each of us are made of 100 marbles and 99 of those are what make us different, and the idea is that there’s at least one thing that ties us all together. We’re all tied together by the questions that we ask ourselves.”
Miller says the two have a survey on their website with four questions:
Miller: “How do you define success? What is happiness? What is goodbye? and What is love?”
They are assembling responses and have a contest for photographers to best represent the answers. Miller says they got positive feedback right away:
Miller: “The first person that we contacted was from I think Vietnam. And it was just some guy that had a website and I was like ‘wow, he takes beautiful photos,’ and within I think twenty minutes he’s like, ‘I would like to be a part of the project.’ You know, he’s in Vietnam and I’m in Eugene. It was just an amazing experience, and from there it’s just taken off.”
Miller says they hope to produce a world-wide cultural experience. He envisions someone in Central America finding a quote from Germany and a photo from Asia and feeling a connection:
Miller: “And so our goal is to bridge the gap between human beings that would otherwise not have an opportunity to have a conversation with each other.”
Dulaney and Miller plan to publish the book in the fall. Here is a link to their website.
