I will check the internet for at least an hour every morning

Host:
The morning light spilled through the half-open blinds like silver blades, slicing across a cluttered desk strewn with coffee cups, crumpled notes, and a flickering laptop screen. The faint hum of the computer was the only sound in the room, apart from the occasional click of a mouse and the shifting sigh of human exhaustion.

The air smelled of old caffeine and damp paper. Outside, the city was waking — horns, voices, the distant rhythm of another day beginning — but inside, time felt frozen in a state of permanent vigilance.

Jack sat hunched at the desk, eyes dimly lit by the cold blue glow of the screen. His hands were steady, but his face betrayed something brittle — the tiredness of someone who sees too much.

Across from him, on the edge of the sofa, Jeeny watched him with quiet sadness, her hair falling loose over her shoulders, her voice low and tender, carrying both admiration and fear.

The quote had just been read aloud — a confession, raw and human:

“I will check the internet for at least an hour every morning scanning worldwide news to do with child abuse. So if you're constantly putting yourself in an environment where you're checking up on social economics or homelessness problems, if you keep yourself aware of it, you don't really have a day off.” — Samantha Morton

Jeeny:
(softly) “She’s right. When you open your eyes to the suffering of others, you never really close them again. Awareness becomes a kind of work you can’t quit.”

Jack:
(leaning back, rubbing his temples) “Or a kind of madness, Jeeny. You call it awareness, I call it burnout. The world’s grief isn’t meant to live in your head 24 hours a day.”

Jeeny:
“Then what do you suggest? That we look away? Pretend the pain isn’t there because it’s inconvenient?”

Jack:
(quietly, almost weary) “I’m saying that if you stare into darkness every morning, eventually it stares back. You can’t carry every injustice without breaking a few of your own bones in the process.”

Host:
The laptop screen flickered again, flashing headlines — Children displaced in war zones. Economic collapse. Violence against women. Each story a tiny weight, pressing on the silence between them.

Jeeny:
(passion rising) “But if people don’t watch, Jack, who will? That’s the price of empathy — it’s not comfortable, it’s not supposed to be. You can’t fight ignorance with sleep.”

Jack:
“And yet, if you never sleep, you die. That’s the paradox, isn’t it? The compassionate become wounded by their own care. They rot from inside out, scrolling through misery in the name of morality.”

Jeeny:
(defensively) “Maybe that’s still better than those who scroll through celebrity gossip and advertisements, pretending everything’s fine. Some of us want to stay awake, even if it hurts.”

Host:
A silence fell. The sound of rain began outside, soft and relentless. Jack turned from the screen, staring at the window, where water ran down like tears that refused to stop.

Jack:
(low, deliberate) “Awareness is noble, Jeeny. But martyrdom isn’t. You drown yourself in tragedy and call it virtue. You think because you feel pain, you’re doing good. But pain alone doesn’t change a thing — it just consumes you.”

Jeeny:
(voice trembling) “It keeps me human, Jack. Don’t you understand? Feeling the weight of the world — it’s the one thing that reminds me I still have a heart. If I ever stop hurting, I’ll have become like the rest — numb, safe, useless.”

Jack:
(bitingly) “No, you’ll have become functional. There’s a difference between being numb and being capable. The world doesn’t need another mourner — it needs builders.”

Jeeny:
(angrily) “And how do you build without feeling? Without seeing the cracks? Without mourning first? You can’t heal what you refuse to touch.”

Host:
The rain struck harder now, the windows rattling slightly. A single lamp burned in the corner, its light warm but small — a flicker of hope in the grey morning. Jeeny’s hands were trembling, Jack’s jaw set like stone, both caught in the quiet violence of opposing truths.

Jack:
(after a long pause) “Do you remember when news was paper, Jeeny? When you could fold it, close it, walk away? Now it’s everywhere, all the time — in your pocket, on your skin. It’s not awareness anymore. It’s invasion.”

Jeeny:
(softly, almost pleading) “Then what are we supposed to do? Ignore it? Pretend children aren’t being hurt? That systems aren’t failing? That pain doesn’t exist because it’s too loud?”

Jack:
“No. But maybe we can see it without letting it own us. You think compassion means bleeding every day, but maybe it means healing enough to keep going.”

Jeeny:
(quietly) “You mean detachment.”

Jack:
“No. I mean balance.”

Host:
The lamp flickered, its light catching the faint steam from Jeeny’s coffee mug. She looked at it, her reflection trembling in the black surface, and in that small circle of liquid darkness, she saw what Jack meant — the endless mirror of empathy, and the danger of never looking away.

Jeeny:
(softly, breaking the silence) “I think that’s what Morton was saying too, in her way. That there’s no such thing as a day off when your heart refuses to close. It’s not a complaint — it’s a truth. Once you’re aware, you can’t go back to ignorance.”

Jack:
(softly) “But awareness without rest becomes despair. And despair never saved anyone.”

Jeeny:
(quietly, but firm) “No — but it reminds you why someone must be saved.”

Host:
The rain slowed, as if listening. The screen dimmed into standby, casting the room in a softer glow. Jack rubbed his eyes, the weight of too many headlines heavy behind them. Jeeny looked at him — not as an opponent, but as a reflection of the same fatigue.

Jack:
(after a long silence) “Maybe the problem isn’t that we care too much. Maybe it’s that we don’t know how to care anymore. The internet gives us infinite eyes but no hands. We can watch, but we can’t touch. So we rot in helpless empathy.”

Jeeny:
(quietly) “Then maybe caring isn’t about fixing everything. Maybe it’s about witnessing. Refusing to let injustice pass unseen.”

Jack:
“And letting it consume you in the process?”

Jeeny:
“Maybe that’s the risk of being human.”

Host:
The light outside began to change — a slow, pale gold creeping into the sky, dissolving the last of the rain. The city stirred again, and through the window, the distant sound of children laughing drifted faintly from a nearby schoolyard.

Jack:
(hearing it) “You hear that?”

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly) “Yes.”

Jack:
“Maybe that’s why people like Morton keep reading those stories — not to suffer, but to remember why it matters. To stay awake, even when it hurts.”

Jeeny:
(nods) “To be haunted, but still hopeful.”

Host:
The camera drifted back, the two figures still in the soft half-light — the computer dark, the world outside brightening. The sound of rainwater dripping from the roof mingled with the distant laughter, creating a fragile harmony between grief and grace.

And as they sat — silent now, each lost in thought — the morning finally arrived.

Because sometimes, awareness is not a burden to escape, but a vow to bear — not forever, not endlessly, but just long enough to remind yourself that the world, however broken, is still worth watching, and still, somehow, worth saving.