To celebrate one’s own birthday is surely an invariably selfish thing to do. Who would have ever considered for a moment that there would come a time when, according to social convention, the individual would proclaim to those around him that today is the day on which he emerged from his mother’s womb? Why, it must be enquired of the person, does he wish to exclaim this to the world? Why, even further it should be countered, does he feel himself so superior and important so as to invite a celebration of his birth and a bundle of gifts showered upon him by his friends and family, even his own mother and father who brought him into this world? And why do his ‘loved ones’ comply as his minions, by throwing for him parties and treating him like royalty? All this should be noted and taken into account by the dictators of social practice in every generation.

There was once such a person who, irrespective of the social expectations which underlined the standards of etiquette present in his place of residence, not only rejected the notion of a birthday celebration, but indeed also could not even remember the exact date on which he came into existence. Certainly, he was able to cite a rough estimate of his age within one or two years, but no day in the calendar had he ever set aside as a special one, not once in his eighty-two or so years.

“But how do you know when you have grown a year?” they would ask him, some with looks of disdain for an old man stuck in his ways, others with ones of reverence for an enigmatic and wise elder.

            “There are signs,” he was often heard replying softly, for time had been harsh on his ability to speak. “Sometimes, I know I have grown because I find it slightly more difficult to walk to my bed in the evening. There are stairs in my home, and as I age my legs become heavy at a certain level on my way up, the level decreasing as my days grow.  When this happens I know my year is nearing its end.”

The social dictators were most displeased.

“Who is this man, to challenge our superior and all-knowing deliberations of a man’s year? Are we all, now, to count our days by the number of stairs we climb before our legs fall heavy? Nay! We shall sooner die!”