Recently, traveling by train to New York City, I found myself sitting between a woman having a moderately loud conversation on a cell phone and a man growing increasingly agitated at the volume of her call. As the ride went on, accompanied by the unremitting sound of her voice, he wriggled and sighed, then finally exploded. “You’re making too much noise!”

She turned to glare at him over my shoulder, as I hunched further down in my seat. Sandwiched between them, I glanced over at him and reflected, Well, the same could be said about you, too! A saying I once heard came into my mind: “The problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking