There is something melancholic about birthdays. I’m not the first to notice this. Another year has gone by, a wise man once said, and we can’t help but note how little we’ve grown. “No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge,” he said, “with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives…this is who we are to the bitter end…..inevitably, irrevocably. Happy birthday? No such thi...
