How should a person be?

Hello, children. Today's book is called How Should a Person Be?, by Sheila Heti.

I first heard about this book in an interview with Lena Dunham, I think. It had been on my "to read" list ever since, but it was just non-existent in Brazil (I mean, I couldn't find it for sale anywhere). Fortunately, my new internship allows me to download almost all the books in existence bwahahah <3 Anyway, when I first saw the description, I was like, "ew, a self-help book", but then it totes wasn't. Actually, this book does not offer any answers of any kind. To be completely honest, I think I finished reading it feeling more messed up than ever. Thus, the subtitle "a novel from life" fits it quite well.

I had the pleasure of highlighting some of my favourite excerpts from the book, and I hope by reading them you'll feel a deep desire to read the book as well. I personally have never felt so connected to anyone as I did to the main character (whose name I can't remember! Go me!). Which I guess is sad. It reminds me of when my psychologist asked me to list 10 boys I'd like to date and like 7 of them were fictional (like Link from the Legend of Zelda, Goku from Dragonball Z and Kyo from a manga called Fruits Basket). "Hopeless", was what her facial expression said.

You can admire anyone for being themselves. It's hard not to, when everyone's so good at it. But when you think of them all together like that, how can you choose? How can you say, I'd rather be responsible like Misha than irresponsible like Margaux? Responsibility looks so good on Misha, and irresponsibility looks so good on Margaux. How could I know which would look best on me?


I had spent so much time trying to make the play I was writing - and my life, and my self - into an object of beauty. It was exhausting and all that I knew.

my paintings look so good when I'm wearing your special glasses. Thank you.

It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.

Standing alone at the bar, I wondered if I could love the boy I noticed at the end of it - the one with curly brown hair, who was like a washed-out, more neutral version of the first boy I loved. When he stepped out into the front steps, I thought, if he has gone out there to smoke, I will love him. But when I got outside, though I could see a cigarette dangling from his lips, I did not love him.

If they can just remember this - It is their everlasting switching that is the dangerous thing, not what they choose - they might discover themselves saved. The problem is the puer ever anticipates loss, disappointment, and suffering - which they foresee at the end of every experience, so they cut themselves off at the beginning, retreating almost at once in order to protect themselves. In this way, they never give themselves to life - living in constant dread of the end. Reason, in this case, has taken too much from life. They must give themselves completely to the experience! One thinks sometimes how much more alive such people would be if they suffered! If they can't be happy, let them at least be unhappy - really, really unhappy for once, and then they might truly become human.

May the Lord have mercy on me for I am a fucking idiot. But I live in a culture of fucking idiots. I cannot be saved if not everyone is saved. if everyone around me talks nothing but shit, how can I hold myself aloof? My fate is not separate from everyone's fate. if one man or woman can stand up and call themselves saved, that means we all are. And I know I'm not, so no one is. 

Recently, Margaux had been trying to reassure me that I had a good brain. My brain had not worried me when I was younger, but over the past year I had become convinced that I did no think as well as other people. No, that was putting it gently - that I didn't know how to think at all. Other people knew how to think, I thought, had opinions on things, a point of view. I did not.

Why are you all reading? I don't understand this reading business when there's so much fucking to be done.

I untangle myself from the sheets and get up and go to the mirror to start my day. I produce a haughty, superior expression to intimidate myself into thinking I'm cool, cooler than I am. I make my eyes as world-weary as possible, like a fashion model's, I think, You're a charlatan. You love everything you were ever given. 

 Hope you have a lovely week! Have you figured out how should a person be?

V.