Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's

Host: The rain came down in fine, silver threads, painting the city in layers of soft blur. Through the wide windows of a dimly lit art studio, the world outside looked like a watercolor left to run. The smell of turpentine, old paint, and quiet thought hung in the air.

A single lamp burned above a cluttered table, its light spilling across sketches, half-finished canvases, and the remains of a long, silent evening.

Jack stood near the window, his grey eyes following the drops down the glass like slow-moving memories. Behind him, Jeeny sat cross-legged on the floor, a worn journal open beside her, her brush idle in her hand.

On the table between them lay a slip of paper, torn from a book, with Sterling K. Brown’s words scrawled in soft ink:

“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.”

Jack: (quietly) You really believe that? That no one sees reality for what it is?

Jeeny: (without looking up) I think that’s the only honest way to see it. We all live in our own versions of the world. Every truth bends through us before it reaches the light.

Host: The rain whispered against the glass, rhythmic, patient. A distant car horn echoed somewhere below, muffled by distance and weather.

Jack turned away from the window, his expression thoughtful, guarded.

Jack: You make it sound poetic. But that’s a dangerous idea — if everyone lives in their own version of truth, then what happens to reality? To justice? To facts?

Jeeny: (gently) Facts are the bones, Jack. Perspective is the flesh. Without it, you don’t have a person — just a skeleton of meaning.

Jack: (sharply) That’s the problem. People dress up lies and call them perspective. They excuse cruelty by saying, “That’s just how I see it.” There’s no empathy in that — just arrogance disguised as individuality.

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze) True empathy isn’t saying “I agree.” It’s saying, “I see.” Even if that vision contradicts your own.

Host: The light flickered softly as the wind pressed against the window. The room seemed to tighten around them — two souls caught in the geometry of human contradiction.

Jack’s hands moved restlessly, brushing against a tube of paint, leaving faint blue streaks on his fingers.

Jack: So what? We’re supposed to see through everyone’s eyes? That’s impossible. I can’t unlive my own story.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) No one’s asking you to. Empathy isn’t about losing your story — it’s about realizing it’s not the only one being told.

Jack: (muttering) Sounds idealistic.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe. But without it, all that’s left is noise.

Host: The lamp light warmed the shadows, softening their edges. Jeeny reached for her brush, dipped it into a thin pool of color, and began to move it gently across the canvas.

Her hand was steady, deliberate, the strokes slow and filled with thought.

Jeeny: You ever notice how painters use the same color differently? The same blue can be sorrow in one painting and peace in another. Same pigment — different prism. Maybe people are like that too.

Jack: (half-smiling) You and your metaphors.

Jeeny: (glancing at him) That’s what happens when you spend your life trying to make sense of chaos. Art and empathy aren’t that different, you know. Both ask you to look beyond what’s in front of you.

Jack: (leaning on the table) Maybe. But art has rules. Empathy doesn’t.

Jeeny: (pauses) That’s not true. Empathy has one rule: Don’t assume your view is the only one that matters.

Host: A pause filled the room, long enough for the rain’s rhythm to become the only sound. Outside, the streetlights glowed like pale suns, and the world blurred into a tapestry of reflections.

Jack watched her for a moment, the quiet precision of her movement, the patience of someone who had learned how to listen without speaking.

Jack: You really think that’s enough? Understanding someone else’s pain? Seeing from their side? It doesn’t fix anything.

Jeeny: Maybe it doesn’t fix it. But it keeps it from spreading. Empathy is how you stop a wound from becoming a war.

Host: The words cut the silence gently, like the steady pull of a thread through fabric.

Jack’s voice softened, his cynicism thinning into something almost like curiosity.

Jack: You ever tried empathizing with someone who hurt you?

Jeeny: (quietly) Every day.

Jack: (surprised) Why?

Jeeny: Because hate is too heavy. And because I’ve realized that even pain has its reasons. You don’t have to agree with the reason — just understand that it exists.

Jack: (after a pause) Sounds exhausting.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) It is. But it’s lighter than anger.

Host: The lamp light shimmered on her face, catching the faint shimmer of paint on her hands. The air between them seemed to hum with unspoken memory — of things done, things regretted, things half-forgiven.

Jack sank into the old chair, his movements slow, the chair creaking softly beneath his weight.

Jack: (murmuring) I used to think empathy was weakness. Like if you understood everyone, you’d stop standing for anything.

Jeeny: (turning toward him) It’s the opposite. It’s the only way to stand with something instead of just against everything.

Jack: (nodding slowly) Maybe. But it’s hard, Jeeny. Especially when you’ve spent your life building armor just to survive.

Jeeny: (gently) Then empathy doesn’t mean taking off the armor. It means realizing the person across from you is wearing theirs too.

Host: The room seemed to breathe with them. The rain had softened to a mist now, whispering against the glass like a sigh. Somewhere beyond the fog, the city pulsed with quiet life — unseen, but present.

Jack: (after a long silence) You ever wonder what your prism looks like? The one you see through?

Jeeny: (thinking) Probably cracked. But maybe that’s how the light gets in.

Jack: (smiles) That’s a pretty answer.

Jeeny: (smiling back) It’s the truest one I’ve got.

Host: A tender quiet settled between them. The kind that doesn’t need resolution, only presence. The canvas before Jeeny glowed faintly — shapes beginning to emerge: not figures, not faces, but light refracted through glass, fragmented yet whole.

Jack watched, his expression softening into wonder.

Jack: (softly) So, empathy’s not about agreeing, not about forgiving… it’s about seeing — really seeing?

Jeeny: (nods) Seeing — and knowing that what you see isn’t everything.

Host: The lamp flickered one last time, then steadied. The rain outside faded completely, leaving the world washed and quiet.

Jack stood, walking toward the window again. His reflection merged with the city lights — two worlds overlapping, neither wrong, neither whole.

Jack: (quietly) Maybe that’s what truth is — just the overlap of our prisms.

Jeeny: (closing her journal) Then maybe empathy is the light that passes through them.

Host: He turned to her and smiled — small, genuine, the kind of smile that says I understand now.

The camera slowly pulled back: two silhouettes surrounded by half-finished paintings, drenched in the soft light of understanding.

Outside, the first faint glimmer of dawn touched the rooftops.

Host: And as the world began to wake, the truth lingered — fragile, luminous, and infinite:

That reality isn’t what we share.
It’s how we choose to see each other through the prism.