How to Forget Where You Came From

First, be from somewhere shameful.

You must make sure you are from someplace run down, broke and broken, unwanted and unwieldy and unwell. Most of the time it is dirty. Your home town must be an embarrassing fact that few people know, or if it is a big place, they must not know which part of it you’re from.

It is not a secret, exactly. It is quiet. You were probably unloved there, persecuted, fearful, abused. You were almost certainly poor.

You are not poor now. You are striving to be less poor with each passing day.