Ohio State alum travels the country to learn from strangers, offers reflections in upcoming book

Logan Nowlin
Thu, 09 Nov 2023 02:17:24 +0000
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Ohio State alum Imran Nuri used a 50-year-old film camera (pictured above) to take portraits of the 1,000 strangers he chatted with across 48 U.S. States during the summer of 2022. Credit: Courtesy of Imran Nuri

“Knowing what you know now in life, what advice do you wish you could give your younger self?”

That is the question Ohio State alum and former BuckeyeThon President Imran Nuri posed to 1,000 different strangers across every U.S. state except for Alaska and Hawaii during the summer of 2022. Nuri spent 84 days living out of his Toyota Camry as he traveled the country, collecting advice and photographs of those who offered their advice with his 50-year-old film camera.

“I felt like I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone,” Nuri said. “Life is not a promise. I felt compelled to do it, and I knew it was going to challenge myself like crazy. The goal was to push myself so far out of my comfort zone that my comfort zone would just expand.”

Nuri’s book “Advice From America,” which will encapsulate his three-month adventure, is set for a Dec. 13 publication date. The 672-page photo book showcases portraits of every stranger Nuri chatted with throughout his travels, paired alongside the varied advice they each contributed.

Nuri said the idea for the photo book dates back to 2019, his third year at Ohio State. He was enrolled in a seminar class at the Fisher College of Business and watched as many of his peers landed internships at Fortune 500 companies.

“I remember looking at that and not resonating with that experience,” Nuri said. “I have no interest in going to some big company and kind of being a cog in the machine.

By the time 2022 rolled around, Nuri knew it was time to turn his idea into a reality. He shut down his 2-year-old nonprofit, The 52 Million Project, took out a personal loan and shared the idea with his loved ones.

“As you can probably imagine, when I was telling friends and family, ‘I am going to live in my car for maybe up to 100 days to go talk to strangers and photograph them, and I am going to quit my job and take out a loan to do it,’ every ounce of that is a red flag,” Nuri said.

Despite these raised concerns, pressing questions about his decision and some light interrogation about the financial aspects of the journey — namely from his father — everyone was fairly supportive of the idea, Nuri said. This included his older brother, Arif Nuri.

“As an older brother, I want to be generally supportive, while also making sure he is doing the right things for himself,” Arif Nuri said.

Arif Nuri said his little brother has always been a go-getter and someone who always gives 100 percent when he has an idea. He said these traits were present even when Imran Nuri was younger, teaching himself both magic and longboarding.

From his BuckeyeThon presidency to establishing his nonprofit to the forthcoming publication of his first book, Arif Nuri said the curiosity Imran Nuri has carried with him since childhood has propelled him through his career.

“I think it is really important for folks when they have a grand idea to go full in and learn from that experience,” Arif Nuri said. “During the pandemic, many people were reprioritizing what was most important to them, and for Imran, it was very much that exploration of wanting to learn more about what is life and what’s the meaning behind all of it.”

Though he has since relocated to Chicago, Imran Nuri returned to his hometown of Columbus in May 2022 to officially kick off his expedition from the driveway of his childhood home.

Over the next 12 weeks, Imran Nuri traveled over 15,000 miles to speak with strangers.

“Everyone was curious what this weird guy in yellow Crocs holding an old camera was going to ask,” Imran Nuri said.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, Imran Nuri met a man who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. As part of his final months, the man decided to get matching tattoos with willing strangers. Imran Nuri obliged, and even though the man died in February, Imran Nuri now has a permanent reminder located on his forearm of the bond they forged.

Imran Nuri (left) poses for a photo with a stranger (right) he met in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The stranger, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was collecting matching tattoos with people he met on the street. He amassed over 700 matching tattoos before his death in February. Credit: Courtesy of Imran Nuri

When Imran Nuri asked him for advice, the man said, “I wish I wouldn’t have worked as hard and as many hours. I missed out on a lot of things. When I got sick, I lost everything, but having nothing is when I got more than I ever had in my life. I swear to God. I’m homeless, I have no car, but I never sleep in the street, and I always have a couple of dollars for beer every day. Having less is more, I’m telling you. The biggest thing in the world you can have is human connection. Without somebody else to live with, nobody would want to be here.”

While in North Carolina, Imran Nuri said he met a striking woman riding around a rest area parking lot in an electric wheelchair.

The woman told Imran Nuri, “I worked my a** off my whole life. I had this big dream that I’d live my life once I retired. I’d do art, redo a little house and raise horses. But then I got sick. I got handicapped and that dream ended. I would tell the younger me to have more fun, enjoy life and make a family. It’s so corny, but family is everything.”

Though Imran Nuri gave each stranger an open platform to say whatever they wanted, almost every person discussed the human condition, which includes aspects of life that are universal to all people, regardless of race, religion, politics or culture, he said.

Upon arriving home from his life-changing trip, Imran Nuri created a Kickstarter to fund the photo book’s self-publication. The Kickstarter reached the initial goal of $25,000 within the first 12 hours, Imran Nuri said, and ultimately raised $68,019.

“My conclusion at the end of it all was that people have a lot more in common than they think,” Imran Nuri said. “People focus on things that divide them without realizing that there is so much more in common than they think. There are more bridges connecting us than walls between us.”

“Advice From America” is currently available for pre-order through Imran Nuri’s website.