I never celebrate birthdays. My wife’s not happy about it but I get awesome presents anyway. And today was special.

Today is my birthday and I couldn’t care less — this year, or any year.

I’m only excited about my birthday insofar as it’s a reminder of how lucky I was to be born when I was born, where I was born — in Moscow in 1980, just in time to capture the final decade of the Soviet Union. Had I been born earlier, my identity would’ve had too many Soviet experiences. I would’ve struggled to embrace the West as much as I did when the country opened…