www.asraiya.com

I originally wrote this in my personal blog published on 7/21/11 but I realized it should be reprinted here since he adequately states what this project means to me...

this is life.. not just a photograph

Life is ridiculous! I'm currently stressing out of my mind trying to put together the most inspiring, believable, responsible, and effective application for the funding of an art project while the US government is approximately 2 weeks away from being completely broke... In the meantime I myself, who is also generally broke, am ignoring that fact to the extent of blowing off the few rare opportunities that actually have presented themselves this week to make enough money to comfortably live through this process (beer, cigarettes, food etc.. what? I'm an artist and I'm stressed!).. Why? Because it's a calling! Because I'm a fatalist.. Because it's not about me! Apparently I want to save the world more than I want to live on it.. Why? Because it's not worth living on if none are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of their fellow man. That is the calling! That is why this art project to me has precedence over everything.. Because I believe it has the power to effect changes so great that it will stir awake a dormant level of the collective consciousness causing an evolutionary leap in the social art experiment, bridging the aspects of ourselves that tend to have a magnetic force field pushing against them. I know this project will make me whole. I know that if I lead a whole life by example others will follow suite. Why? Because I have a dream.. and in a world like this one sometimes a dream is the only thing you have that makes a single lick of sense therefore it is the most sensible gift to give no matter how unrealistic it appears against the background of everything else. Dreams happen for a reason and mine most often really do come true but not from wishing upon a star, but by being one! Every man and woman is a star forever blazing a path to eternity.. even when a brick fucking wall has been built in the center of it, just got lay it down. When there's nothing left at hand, still got to lay it down. Will you then get the funding for your art project? I don't know, I think I need to lay down and nap... but I'm not tired! I'm not dead yet! The time is at hand!

me as MeMe the Mime