At first, you gather voraciously, you want to be informed about everything, collecting from everywhere, books overflow from the shelves of your library to your desk, piles rise on tables and chairs. This is the period you’re going through, so continue to be a collector, seeking here and there, that is your truth now.

Because at forty, you think about sorting for the first time. A thousand books only, the best ones, those that are essential for you, which were milestones and condensations, those you regularly open or at least refer to from time to time. You begin to sift, starting to list haphazardly from science and literature (some by Marx, The Waste Land, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, etc., etc.) and along the way, you realize that even with a hundred, you get the job done and it’s better this way.

As you grow older, you start another round of decluttering, tougher now, the most important ones are counted almost on your fingers, you’ve fallen to one or two dozens. You stay there for a while. It feels like betrayal to you, that you lose a part of yourself if you forsake even one of them. You grow even more, and when no other escape route seems apparent, you will take the leap.

You will settle for one book. At this point, people are divided into two. Some with the New Testament and others with Homer. Then, for many, the image they have of their past is altered; they rewrite their lives. Now you know. But don’t start the thoughts when the time comes for you to finally choose which one it will be. Let it be; that moment will speak for itself.