Not Consulted at All

“Birth is another irresistible process. As writers in another time would have said, the present writer was born in 1953. I do not recall being consulted about this in 1952, and I have on good authority that this was because I was not there. I was born a Wilson, and not a Smith. I was born a boy, and not a girl. I was born in the United States, and not in Ethiopia. I had all kinds of irresistible things thrust at me, and did not begin to seriously reflect on what I was doing with it all until about sixteen years later” (From After Darkness, Light, pp. 138-139).