Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by

Host: The morning broke in muted grey, its light slanting through the cracked windows of an old factory converted into a makeshift workshop. The air was heavy with the scent of iron, paint, and burnt coffee. Machines slept under dusty tarps, their once-loud engines now ghosts of a different era.

Host: Jack stood by the long table, sleeves rolled up, his hands stained with oil and graphite. He was sketching lines on a metal plate, the strokes precise, mathematical — every angle an act of control. Jeeny entered quietly, carrying two cups of coffee, her scarf fluttering like a thread of color in the pale morning.

Host: Between them, pinned on the corkboard above the tools, was a piece of yellowed paper — a quote scrawled in ink:
"Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments." — Leonardo da Vinci.

Jeeny: “You’ve been staring at that quote all week,” she said, placing his cup down beside him. “You look like you’re arguing with it.”

Jack: “Maybe I am,” he replied, without looking up. His voice was low, steady, but tired. “Da Vinci makes it sound like experience is some kind of perfect teacher. But experience lies all the time.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack,” she said softly. “Experience doesn’t lie. We just don’t always understand what it’s trying to say.”

Host: A faint light trembled on the surface of the table, spilling from the high window, catching the edges of the tools and drawings like fragments of old truths.

Jack: “Tell that to a man who’s done everything right and still failed,” he said. “Experience told me this machine would work. The calculations were perfect. And yet—”

Host: He gestured toward the dismantled prototype — a fractured model of a mechanical arm, its wires exposed, its promise unfinished.

Jeeny: “So you think the failure proves that experience is wrong?”

Jack: “It proves that experience can’t be trusted. It tells us one thing, but reality gives us another. That’s the problem with Da Vinci’s certainty. The man painted miracles, but he never had to face the weight of a real one breaking in his hands.”

Jeeny: “He built more than miracles, Jack. He failed more times than anyone could count. His notebooks are full of broken dreams. But he never blamed experience — he blamed interpretation.”

Jack: “Interpretation doesn’t fix a machine.”

Jeeny: “No. But it teaches you how to build a better one.”

Host: The wind outside howled through a broken vent, carrying the scent of rain and rust. The sound seemed to echo through the cavernous space, threading itself between their words.

Jack: “That sounds poetic, Jeeny, but in the real world, mistakes have cost. You don’t get to philosophize when a system collapses. Ask any engineer, any doctor — sometimes experience kills.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Judgment kills. Pride kills. Certainty kills. Experience just hands us the facts — it’s what we decide to learn from them that makes us blind or wise.”

Host: Her voice wavered, but her eyes stayed firm, glowing with that steady, moral fire that never needed defense.

Jack: “And what if the facts themselves are flawed?”

Jeeny: “Then they weren’t facts — they were assumptions wearing the mask of truth.”

Host: The words hung there — like a blade suspended between them, sharp and gleaming in the still air. Jack turned away, his shoulders tense. The clock ticked faintly in the corner, marking time’s silent indifference to human pride.

Jack: “You talk like the world makes sense, Jeeny. Like there’s some divine order hiding beneath our failures. But maybe experience doesn’t teach anything at all. Maybe it just happens, indifferent, and we keep pretending it means something.”

Jeeny: “Then why are you still trying to fix that arm, Jack?”

Host: He froze, his hand halfway to the wrench. The question struck deeper than the tone intended.

Jack: “Because… I have to. Because if I don’t learn from it, it was for nothing.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: Her smile was faint, almost sorrowful. “That’s experience, Jack. It doesn’t care whether you fail or succeed. It’s the mirror. You’re the one who decides whether to look or turn away.”

Jack: “You sound like a teacher.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a man who’s afraid that his failures define him.”

Host: A long silence followed. The sunlight crept further across the table, touching the broken arm’s metal frame until it glimmered faintly — a wounded thing still trying to shine.

Jack: “Do you really believe experience is pure? That it never lies?”

Jeeny: “I believe experience is honest — brutally so. It’s our judgments that invent stories. We want to think every mistake has a reason, every pain a lesson. But maybe the truth is simpler: things fail because they must. That’s how we learn humility.”

Jack: “Humility doesn’t build machines.”

Jeeny: “No, but it builds people.”

Host: He looked at her then — really looked. There was something steady in her gaze, something that didn’t flinch from the wreckage of his pride.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, I built my first engine from scrap. My father laughed — said I was wasting my time. It blew up after two minutes of running. Burned my hands, scared the hell out of me. But I remember thinking even then — it worked for two minutes. I just needed to find out why it stopped.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why you’ll always build. Because you don’t stop at failure.”

Jack: “Because failure is data.”

Jeeny: “Because failure is experience.”

Host: The faint hum of the city began to stir outside — the first buses, the grinding sound of industry returning to life. Inside, the workshop felt like an island between centuries: Da Vinci’s ink-stained wisdom breathing through steel and circuitry.

Jack: “You ever think Da Vinci was warning himself in that line? ‘Experience never errs’ — maybe he wasn’t being certain. Maybe he was reminding himself not to mistake hope for truth.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly. “And maybe he was reminding us that the universe isn’t wrong — we are. Every wrong expectation is a form of arrogance. We think the world should behave according to our design, not its own.”

Jack: “So what? We should just surrender?”

Jeeny: “No. We should listen.”

Host: The rain began, soft at first, then steady — the kind that made the air hum with life. Drops traced long silver lines down the windows, refracting the light across the workshop walls like living veins.

Jack: “You know, I used to think experience was like an equation. Input, output, conclusion. But now I think it’s more like music — you don’t control it. You just learn to play in tune.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You can’t force harmony — you can only recognize it.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly, then picked up the wrench again. The sound of metal turning filled the space, rhythmic, steady — like heartbeat and thought aligning once more.

Jeeny: “See?” she said, watching him work. “You’re learning already.”

Jack: “I’m just adjusting.”

Jeeny: “That’s all learning ever is.”

Host: The light deepened to gold now, sliding across the floor. The rain softened to a whisper. Jack’s hands moved with new precision, each motion deliberate, informed — not by certainty, but by humility.

Host: The camera pulled slowly back, the workshop glowing in its quiet resurrection. Two people — one rebuilding, one watching — standing in the pulse of time’s oldest experiment: the human will to understand.

Host: As the rain faded into silence, Jeeny spoke the last words like a benediction.

Jeeny: “Experience never errs, Jack. Only the heart that refuses to see what it’s showing us does.”

Host: He looked up, smiled faintly — tired, human, alive.

Jack: “Then I guess it’s time to stop arguing with Da Vinci.”

Host: The scene closed on the faint sound of the machine humming to life again — a soft, trembling miracle born from failure, proof that even broken experiments can sing when the judgment finally listens.