“The older I get,” wrote television legend Fred Rogers, “the more convinced I am that the space between people who are trying their best to understand each other is hallowed ground.” I did not grow up in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but in a way, I vicariously went there...

Noise is a tenured resident in our modern lives. Whether it’s the whirl of a tumbling dryer, the muted voices of sportscasters calling a game, the hum of an automobile’s engine, or the buzz of the florescent fixtures in our offices, all manner of noise is with us and...

Humans have an uncanny ability to detect whether or not another person is fully present to us. Little things give us away like a furtive glance at the cell phone, a slight rotation of the wrist with a watch, or a peripheral look at the clock on the wall. And then...