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The Book of Names is a project conceived of in the spirit of the Noble Quest. It has grown and evolved over many years, but its core purpose is still the same. To sign the book, people add their signature, where they're from, where we met, and the date, all in their native language. They then add two or three words that have some kind of special meaning or significance for them in their own hearts, and finally write anything they like. What they have written ranges from the profane to the profound, but all of it adds together to tell a small, but ever growing, part of our shared human story.
The Book includes nameless Tibetan herders, famous comedians, peasants, politicitians, musicians, Holocaust survivors, authors, historians, Daoist masters, priests, imams, business men, travelers, master sword and knife makers from around the world, wanderers, rogues, the last inheritors of a lost Silk Road civilization, and a self-described existentialist philosopher to name a few. Some of these people I met in coffee shops in major world cities and others I had to hike deep into remote mountain ranges to find, but all represent special, unique parts of the shared history and herritage of humankind.
The book does not belong to me; I am only its caretaker. It has a life of its own, which is added to by each new person who signs it. I hope someday to pass it - or them, as the case may be - down to the next generation, to see it live beyond the lifespan of one simple caretaker.
About the Book of Names