You know times are changing when a 26-year-old kid is voted Man of the Year by Time magazine. But there he is: Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, the wunderkind who created Facebook and became a billionaire in the process. I am awestruck, and not in a way that makes me any happier.

For all of Zuckerberg’s life, I have been reading sometimes obscure and difficult books, struggling to find my way in the world. I am old enough to be his father; indeed, my oldest child is older than Zuckerberg. I am destined to toil away in obscurity.