I don't like technology and all that. I'm a farm boy. I would

Host: The sun sank low over the hills, spilling amber light across a field of corn, its stalks rustling in a soft, dry whisper. The barn in the distance stood like a memory of older times — its wood worn and its roof freckled with rust. A tractor slept under a sheet of dust, and the air was thick with the scent of hay, earth, and evening.

Inside the barn, Jack leaned against a beam, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his hands rough with the kind of work machines used to do. Across from him, Jeeny stood beside a small table, her tablet glowing, casting a cold light over the warm tones of the old wood.

Jeeny: “So you really mean it? ‘I don’t like technology and all that. I’m a farm boy. I would rather live in that time when you had to provide for your family.’ That’s what you said?”

Jack: “Every word of it.” (he smirks) “If it were up to me, I’d throw that tablet of yours into the field and let the cows decide what to do with it.”

Host: The light flickered through the barn doors, strips of gold and shadow across Jack’s face. His grey eyes had that look — the one that carried a mixture of nostalgia and stubbornness, like a man standing on the border of two eras.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s trying to live in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Jack: “Maybe. But at least back then, the world made sense. You woke up, worked the land, took care of your people. You didn’t need an app to tell you when to breathe or a phone to prove you’re alive.”

Jeeny: “You think that’s simplicity. But that was also hardship, Jack. You’re romanticizing a time when people broke their backs for food and still went hungry.”

Jack: “And yet, they knew what their hands were for. They didn’t sit at desks all day pretending to matter in meetings that don’t.”

Host: A faint breeze stirred through the barn, carrying the smell of damp soil and the faint hum of distant crickets. The modern world felt very far away — and that, perhaps, was the point.

Jeeny: “You say that, but you’re forgetting what modern technology gave you. Electricity. Medicine. The tractor that lets you farm alone instead of with ten other men. Isn’t that worth something?”

Jack: “Sure, it makes life easier. But not better. We traded meaning for comfort. People don’t talk anymore — they post. They don’t build — they scroll. I miss when everything we had came from our own effort, not from a factory in China.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound like effort alone makes life noble. But isn’t it just as human to evolve? To make things easier so we can think, dream, create?”

Jack: (snorts) “Dream? You mean drown in distractions. You think we’re freer now? We’re slaves to our screens. Even out here, you can’t stay off that thing.”

Host: Jeeny glanced at her tablet, the light reflecting off her eyes, then set it down gently on the table.

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re right about part of it. But don’t you think nostalgia can blind you? I mean — imagine living without antibiotics. Or being trapped in your hometown because you couldn’t afford a horse. Isn’t there beauty in how far we’ve come?”

Jack: “There’s beauty, yeah. But there’s no soul. Everything’s convenient now — too convenient. Back then, people earned their peace. Now, we just download it.”

Jeeny: “You think technology stole the soul. I think it just changed where it lives.”

Host: Her voice echoed softly through the barn, bouncing off the old beams like the sound of reason haunting a room full of memory.

Jack: “Changed where it lives? You tell me — when was the last time you felt real silence? No notifications. No hum of electricity. Just... wind and your heartbeat.”

Jeeny: (pauses) “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I come here. To remember what silence feels like.”

Jack: (nods) “Then you know what I mean. Out here, you can hear things again. Yourself, mostly.”

Host: A long silence followed. The crickets sang louder. A bird cried somewhere near the trees. Jeeny sat down on a hay bale, her fingers brushing through the dry stalks.

Jeeny: “It’s not the machines that bother me, Jack. It’s the way we let them replace connection. But still — technology can connect too. During the pandemic, remember? People farmed together online, shared seeds, shared stories. It’s not all cold metal.”

Jack: “Maybe. But those stories fade fast. Out here, you plant something — it grows. It stays. Technology gives you moments that vanish the second you turn off the screen.”

Jeeny: “Or it gives you the power to keep something alive you’d never reach otherwise. You’re a farmer — you understand growth. Isn’t that what progress is? Just another form of planting?”

Jack: “Progress is fine — until it forgets its roots. The world’s full of people who can code but can’t cook. Who can send a satellite to Mars but don’t know where their food comes from. How’s that not madness?”

Host: The light had turned copper, streaking through the barn like fading fire. Dust floated in the air, each particle glowing for a moment before vanishing.

Jeeny: “You’re afraid of losing touch, Jack. I get it. But technology doesn’t erase nature — it reflects us. If we’re careless, it’s because we let it be that way. But it can heal too. Drones help farmers map their crops now, detect droughts before they happen. That’s still nature — guided by mind.”

Jack: (grins slightly) “That’s not farming. That’s programming with dirt.”

Jeeny: (smiles back) “Maybe. But maybe that’s the new way of tending to life — with both hands and mind. Maybe technology doesn’t make us less human. Maybe it’s just another kind of plow.”

Host: A beam of sunlight slipped through a crack in the barn wall, catching a strand of Jeeny’s hair. Jack looked at her for a long moment — not arguing now, but thinking.

Jack: “You really believe that, don’t you? That machines can serve the same heart that once held a plow.”

Jeeny: “I believe the heart’s the constant. The tools just change.”

Host: Jack turned toward the door, where the last light touched the field, painting everything in gold and dust.

Jack: “I don’t hate technology, Jeeny. I hate what it did to people. It made them forget what effort feels like. What it means to be tired because you built something with your hands.”

Jeeny: “Then teach them. Don’t reject it — root it. Let the machines learn what you already know: that the earth is sacred. That work is holy.”

Host: Her words hung in the air like a prayer. Jack didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached for an old hoe, its handle smooth from years of touch. He placed it beside her tablet — wood and metal, past and present, side by side.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they can live together — as long as one remembers to get dirty now and then.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “And the other remembers to dream.”

Host: Outside, the sun finally slipped below the horizon, and the sky turned a deep, quiet blue. The field rustled in the breeze, alive, breathing.

Inside the barn, the light from the tablet flickered against the grain of the wood, merging old warmth with new glow. It was neither farm nor city now — just a space where two worlds met, arguing, learning, forgiving.

And as Jack stepped outside, his boots sinking softly into the soil, he looked back once more at the glow behind him — and for the first time, it didn’t look like an enemy. It looked like a future that might, somehow, remember the earth.