I graduated from university with a degree in architecture and

Host: The city stretched beyond the window, a blur of lights and reflections, pulsing like the veins of something vast and restless. It was almost midnight. The office floor was quiet now — the kind of silence that hums with electric ghosts from screens left on. Papers lay scattered across desks, blueprints rolled into tired cylinders, coffee cups half-empty.

Jack sat near the window, his shirt sleeves rolled up, a faint line of fatigue under his grey eyes. He looked like a man who’d spent too many nights chasing deadlines instead of dreams. Jeeny leaned against the desk, her hair falling loosely, her eyes catching the dull light of a desk lamp. She was calm, but her presence filled the room with something alive — a kind of quiet rebellion.

The rain began, soft and hesitant, against the glass, as if the world itself was whispering about exhaustion.

Jeeny: “Daniel Wu once said, ‘I graduated from university with a degree in architecture and then ended up doing a series of internships with different firms. And once I was in an office environment, I realized that at school what I was doing was 98 percent creative, 2 percent makework, but in the real world, it was the other way around.’”

Jack: (half-smiling) “Yeah, I remember that one. Sounds about right. That’s not cynicism — that’s just reality. The world runs on the 98 percent makework. The creative two percent? That’s what they put on company posters to make the interns believe in something.”

Host: The lamp light flickered once, and for a moment the room felt like an old photograph, two figures frozen in the gray wash of truth and disillusionment.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that tragic, Jack? To spend years studying how to build beauty, and end up pushing pixels or approving forms for someone else’s vision? It’s like being trained to paint the sky, and then being told to only mix the colors.”

Jack: “It’s not tragic. It’s survival. The creative dream collapses if no one keeps the books, fills the reports, or gets the permits signed. You can’t build a cathedral on imagination alone. Even Da Vinci had to deal with clients, budgets, and politics.”

Jeeny: “That’s not what Wu meant. He wasn’t talking about the necessity of structure. He was mourning the imbalance — how bureaucracy strangles the creative spark until you forget why you started in the first place.”

Host: The rain deepened, its rhythm syncing with their voices — steady, relentless. Jack turned back to the city, the neon glow reflected in his eyes, like broken dreams shimmering on the surface of a dark river.

Jack: “The system is the same everywhere. Architecture, film, design, even medicine. School fills you with ideals. The real world teaches you invoices. You either adapt or burn out.”

Jeeny: “But if everyone adapts, Jack, who’s left to build something new? The world doesn’t change because of adaptation. It changes because someone refuses to.”

Jack: “Refusing doesn’t pay rent.”

Jeeny: “Neither does losing your soul.”

Host: The words struck like a soft knife. Jack’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. Outside, a distant siren rose and faded — another sound of the city’s endless churn.

Jack: “Idealism is a luxury, Jeeny. You can’t design cities with rebellion. You need plans, calculations, logistics — not feelings. Look at Le Corbusier — brilliant mind, but even he had to bow to politics, to money. His cities weren’t pure art; they were compromises wrapped in concrete.”

Jeeny: “And yet people still walk through those streets, Jack. They still feel something when they see his lines, his light, his symmetry. That’s what lasts — not the paperwork. You think creativity dies in the real world, but it’s the only thing that survives it.”

Host: A flash of lightning lit the sky, scattering brief shadows across the office walls. The blueprints fluttered as the wind sneaked through a cracked window, their edges trembling like trapped wings.

Jack: (sighs) “You sound like every idealist I used to know. Full of fire until they hit their first contract clause. Then they quit, or they start drinking.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because the world doesn’t make space for their fire. It turns them into gears. And gears can’t dream, Jack.”

Host: The silence hung between them like a bridge — fragile, suspended over something deep and unspoken. Jack looked at Jeeny for a long moment, his eyes softer now, less steel, more smoke.

Jack: “You really think creativity can survive in all this?”

Jeeny: “I think it has to. Otherwise, we end up designing prisons and calling them cities. We decorate efficiency and call it purpose. We forget that architecture — and life — are supposed to move the human spirit.”

Jack: “You make it sound like art can save the world.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not the world. But maybe it can save the person who creates it.”

Host: The rain slowed, turning into a mist, blurring the city into soft motionless watercolor. Jeeny stepped closer, her voice quieter, but it carried through the room like the last note of a song.

Jeeny: “Remember the first building you ever designed, Jack? The one with the open roof and the courtyard full of mirrors? You said it was about ‘light finding its way through broken things.’ What happened to that man?”

Jack: (smiles faintly, eyes distant) “He got a job.”

Jeeny: “No. He got scared.”

Host: Jack laughed — a low, tired sound that carried both truth and sadness. He leaned back, the chair creaking, the citylight outlining his profile like the edge of a statue worn by time.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we all get scared — that’s what makes us efficient. Fear of losing the job, the chance, the illusion of control.”

Jeeny: “And yet that fear is exactly what kills the 98 percent of the dream we start with.”

Host: The clock ticked quietly in the corner. The rain had stopped. The streets outside gleamed with reflected signs — red, white, green — like a painter’s forgotten palette.

Jack: “So what do we do, Jeeny? How do we survive this balance between dream and grind?”

Jeeny: “We don’t balance it. We fight it. Not every day — just enough to remind ourselves that the 2 percent still matters. That’s how the world changes — not through revolutions, but through people who still dare to sketch something impossible during their lunch break.”

Jack: “You sound like you’re still in school.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the only place where the heart still builds before the hands.”

Host: The air in the room felt lighter now. The storm had passed, leaving behind the faint smell of rain and paper. Jack reached for one of the blueprints, unrolled it, and stared — long and hard — at the unfinished design. His finger traced the empty space where the courtyard would be, the place where the light was supposed to fall.

Jack: “You know, I think I’ll finish this one. Not for the client. For me.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “Then that’s the real architecture, Jack — not what you build, but why you build it.”

Host: She walked to the window, her reflection merging with the city’s glow, and for a moment, she looked like part of the skyline itself — fragile, fierce, eternal. Jack stood behind her, their silhouettes framed by the soft halo of urban light.

Outside, the city still worked — unending, mechanical, alive. But somewhere inside that hum of machinery, a small spark had reignited. A quiet promise between two weary souls that the 2 percent — the fragile, defiant 2 percent — was still worth fighting for.

And as the camera panned out, the office lights flickered, catching the corner of a blueprint — a design where dream met discipline, where creativity still dared to survive the real world’s gray.