In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.

Host: The office was a maze of screens, glass walls, and buzzing lights that never truly dimmed, even after the sunset. The city outside hummed in a dull electric rhythm, the kind that echoes inside your bones when you’ve worked too long and cared too little.

Inside one of the meeting rooms, Jack sat at the end of a long table, tie loosened, sleeves rolled, his grey eyes fixed on the glow of a presentation slide. Across from him, Jeeny leaned back in her chair, her posture calm, her hands folded, but her eyes — sharp, awake, alive.

Between them, the room’s air was thick with the hum of exhaustion — the kind that comes not from work, but from repetition.

Jeeny: “You’ve been staring at that same deck for twenty minutes, Jack. You’re not editing anymore. You’re hypnotized.”

Jack: “No. I’m thinking.”

Jeeny: “About what?”

Jack: “About how every word we write now sounds like static.”

Host: The fluorescent lights flickered for a moment, then steadied, casting a faint blue sheen over the room, like truth itself was hesitating.

Jack: “You ever read Bernbach?”

Jeeny: “The ad guy? Of course. ‘Think Small.’ The man who reinvented honesty.”

Jack: “Yeah. He said, ‘In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.’”

Jeeny: “Hmm.”

Jack: “He was right. We keep repeating the same slogans, same tones, same smiles — people stop hearing us. They stop caring. We’ve turned meaning into wallpaper.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe people stop caring because they stop believing the people behind the words.”

Host: A long pause stretched between them. The city’s lights glimmered through the glass, tiny constellations of commerce, advertising, and noise.

Jack: “You sound like you’re blaming us.”

Jeeny: “I am. We’re communicators, Jack. We sell stories for a living. And lately, we don’t even believe our own.”

Jack: “It’s not that simple. Familiarity doesn’t kill meaning — laziness does. Audiences change, attention shrinks. You have to adapt.”

Jeeny: “Adaptation isn’t recycling. We’ve mistaken noise for connection. Look around — every ad looks the same, every campaign feels the same. Every person scrolling just… scrolls faster. We’re shouting into an ocean of echoes.”

Host: Jack ran a hand through his hair, tired, worn. His jawline caught the light, the lines of a man who once believed in something and now couldn’t remember what.

Jack: “You think it’s our fault people don’t care anymore?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s our fault we stopped making them feel.”

Jack: “Feelings don’t sell. Clarity does.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Clarity gets you noticed. Feeling makes you remembered.”

Host: The air conditioning hummed, the screensaver on the TV shifted, casting waves of color across their faces — first blue, then red, then white, like a silent argument of light.

Jeeny: “You know what Bernbach really understood? He knew people didn’t buy products. They bought identity. They bought emotion. He once said, ‘You can’t sell a man who isn’t listening.’ And people only listen when they care.”

Jack: “Maybe people are tired of caring. Maybe apathy isn’t the disease — it’s the cure.”

Jeeny: “That’s a dangerous thing to say for someone whose job is to move hearts.”

Jack: “Hearts burn out, Jeeny. Look around. Every campaign, every pitch — it’s like déjà vu. Inspiration has a shelf life.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it’s not inspiration that’s dying. Maybe it’s honesty.”

Host: Her voice cut through the room like a scalpel, clean, precise, and unapologetic. Jack looked up, and for the first time that night, he didn’t just see her — he heard her.

Jack: “Honesty doesn’t pay bills.”

Jeeny: “Neither does boredom.”

Host: The rain outside began to fall, soft, steady, painting streaks across the glass like tears on a forgotten face.

Jeeny: “You know what Bernbach said when he started DDB? He said, ‘Let’s stop lying to people.’ And the world listened. Because truth was rare. Now we call it ‘authenticity,’ but it’s the same word, hollowed out.”

Jack: “So what do you want me to do? Throw away the brief? Tell the client their message is meaningless?”

Jeeny: “I want you to remember why you started doing this.”

Jack: “Because I was good at it.”

Jeeny: “No. Because you used to believe words could change something.”

Host: The room fell silent, the only sound the soft ticking of a clock on the wall, each second a quiet reminder of time lost to routine.

Jack: “You ever wonder if Bernbach would even survive in this world? Algorithms write better copy than half the team. Emotion is measured in clicks.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he wouldn’t survive. But he’d still be right.”

Jack: “You think passion can fight apathy?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing that ever has.”

Host: Jack stood, walked toward the window, and stared down at the streets below — billboards, screens, faces illuminated by phones, all scrolling, all seeing, but not really looking.

Jack: “Sometimes I think communication is the tragedy of our age. We speak more than ever, but we don’t say anything.”

Jeeny: “That’s because familiarity numbs us. You repeat the word ‘love’ too often and it becomes noise. You repeat truth too long without living it, and it becomes advertising.”

Jack: “So what, Jeeny? We stop speaking?”

Jeeny: “No. We start meaning.”

Host: Her voice was quiet now, but it carried, the way truth always does when it’s finally whispered instead of shouted.

Jack: “You know… when I first joined this place, I thought communication was about clarity. About saying the right thing. Now I think it’s about daring to say something real.”

Jeeny: “That’s Bernbach talking.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just me remembering what it feels like not to be bored by my own words.”

Host: He turned, his expression softer now — still tired, but touched by a faint spark. Jeeny watched him, her eyes gentle, like someone who had seen a man start to find his way back from the fog.

Jeeny: “You can’t make people care, Jack. But you can remind them they once did.”

Jack: “And how do you do that?”

Jeeny: “By caring first.”

Host: Outside, the rain lightened, the city lights blurred, and in the reflection of the window, their faces seemed closer, merged by the same halo of neon and memory.

Jack: “Familiarity breeds apathy, huh? Maybe the cure is risk — saying something so true it hurts again.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because only when something can hurt you, can it move you.”

Host: Jack reached for the laptop, closed the presentation, and for the first time that night, the room was filled not with light, but with darkness — a living, fertile darkness, full of possibility.

Jeeny: “So… what do we tell the client?”

Jack: (smirking) “We tell them the truth.”

Host: She laughed, a quiet, real sound — the kind of laugh that cuts through fatigue and finds the soul.

The rain stopped. The lights of the city still glimmered, but now, in their reflection, two faces remained — not marketers, not cynics, but storytellers, ready once more to feel what they say.

And for a fleeting moment, even the silence between them was alive — as if communication itself had finally remembered its pulse.

Fade out.