People who have suffered from mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide thoughts can participate in Project Semicolon by sketching, stenciling, or tattooing semicolons on their skin. According to the website, "a semicolon signifies a sentence that the author might have concluded but decided not to." Participants are asked to explain their decision not to finish writing their sentence. Project Semicolon was created by Japanese artist Haruki Murakami. He started the project in October 2007. As of January 8, 2015, he has recorded over 600 sentences for nearly every state in the United States. The project is currently located in Washington with plans to move it to each subsequent state that enters the Union after Washington. Murakami claims that he began the project because he feels that people need to break away from their usual habits and routines to keep life interesting and full of surprise. By drawing or writing sentences that we never finish, we exercise our brain cells and force them to work harder. This, in turn, makes us more intelligent individuals. As you can see, the semicolon is quite an important symbol in writing and literature. It is also very relevant to mental health since it represents anxiety. People who suffer from this condition will often worry about things that may not even happen, thus unable to finish what they start writing.