When wedding invitations have arrived over the years, or we have learned of someone’s death and the family’s desire to have us there for their funeral, we haven’t had to decide whether to go. The question is simply how. Though there have been a few times when it was, to our great regret, impossible for us to travel, this already-made decision has served us well over and over and given us some of the most memorable and transformative experiences of our lives. One of the great gifts of technology is the simulation of presence at a distance. Starting with the telephone (which literally means
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