It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.

Host:
The evening settled softly over the train station, the kind of hour that smelled like metal, rain, and waiting. The platform lights flickered, humming a tired yellow, and a thin mist hung in the air — not quite fog, not quite memory.

Passengers came and went — faces lined by time, voices muffled by routine. Jack sat on a wooden bench near the far end of the platform, a worn leather bag at his feet, a faint bruise beneath his left eye. His shirt was wrinkled, his tie loosened — a man who had lost something, though maybe not everything.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned against a column, a notebook in her lap. She wasn’t writing, just watching him — that still, patient kind of watching that feels like understanding. The train tracks stretched endlessly ahead, glinting faintly under the fading light.

Jeeny: softly “Roger Ascham once said, ‘It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.’”

Jack: smiling faintly, without looking up “Yeah. And no one ever mentions how bad the exchange rate gets.”

Jeeny: smiling back “Because we never know the price until we’ve already paid.”

Jack: quietly “Or until the receipt shows up years later — in regret, in scars, in silence.”

Jeeny: softly “Experience doesn’t hand out receipts, Jack. It hands out lessons — written in ink you can’t erase.”

Jack: nodding slowly “And the older you get, the clearer the handwriting.”

Host: A train horn echoed distantly — low, mournful, almost human. The sound cut through the evening like memory interrupting sleep. The light above them flickered again, painting them alternately in glow and shadow.

Jeeny: after a pause “You look like you’ve been through one of those expensive lessons.”

Jack: dryly “You could say that. I invested in trust. The market crashed.”

Jeeny: gently “A partner?”

Jack: quietly “A friend. Business. Same difference when money’s involved.”

Jeeny: softly “And the wisdom?”

Jack: after a pause “Never mistake shared ambition for shared loyalty.”

Jeeny: quietly “That’s a hard one.”

Jack: nodding slowly “Yeah. Wisdom that costs nothing isn’t worth much.”

Host: The wind swept through the platform, lifting a few discarded papers and the faint scent of rain. Somewhere nearby, a vendor closed his stall, the clang of metal shutters echoing like punctuation in their silence.

Jeeny: softly “You know, I think Ascham was talking about more than loss. Costly wisdom isn’t just about what we pay — it’s about what we learn to stop expecting.”

Jack: looking up at her now “You mean the kind that teaches you to live smaller?”

Jeeny: shaking her head gently “No. The kind that teaches you to live sharper. To recognize truth faster. To know when to walk away before you’re dragged.”

Jack: smiling faintly “That sounds like cynicism with better lighting.”

Jeeny: softly “No. It’s grace with boundaries.”

Host: The train approached in the distance — its light piercing the mist like a slow revelation. The metal tracks began to hum, the vibration running faintly under their feet.

Jack: quietly “When I was younger, I thought experience made you wiser automatically. Like it just accumulates — days pass, and boom, wisdom.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “You thought time was the teacher.”

Jack: nodding “Yeah. Turns out time’s just the classroom. Pain’s the teacher.”

Jeeny: softly “And failure’s the exam.”

Jack: smiling faintly “Which I’ve taken multiple times. Still waiting on my diploma.”

Jeeny: gently “You’re earning it. Slowly. That’s why it’s costly — it’s paid in patience, not perfection.”

Host: The train pulled in, slowing with a hiss of brakes and a burst of steam. Its doors opened with a mechanical sigh, releasing a handful of passengers, each carrying stories in their silence.

Jeeny: after a pause “The hardest part about wisdom bought by experience is that no one else can inherit it. You can’t teach it — you can only live it.”

Jack: quietly “Yeah. You try to warn people, but they still walk into the same fire. I know I did.”

Jeeny: softly “That’s how humanity learns — one burnt hand at a time.”

Jack: after a pause “And by the time we stop touching the flame, it’s already gone out.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Then we learn to make light differently.”

Host: The train’s engine idled, filling the air with its mechanical heartbeat. Jack glanced toward it, as if weighing whether to leave or stay. His eyes were tired, but alive — the kind of tired that comes from living fully, even when it hurts.

Jeeny: softly “You know, there’s beauty in it too — costly wisdom. It means you’ve lived deeply enough to lose something that mattered.”

Jack: quietly “Yeah. The price proves the value.”

Jeeny: nodding “Exactly. Cheap lessons fade. The ones that scar you — those stay.”

Jack: after a pause “You ever wish you could unlearn something?”

Jeeny: softly “All the time. But wisdom doesn’t return refunds either.”

Jack: smiling faintly “So we carry it, even when it hurts.”

Jeeny: quietly “Especially then. Because that’s when it matters most.”

Host: The last of the passengers boarded, the platform nearly empty now. The night had deepened, the air cooler. The world seemed suspended between what had been learned and what was still waiting to be understood.

Jack: softly “Maybe Ascham was right. Wisdom isn’t knowledge — it’s debt. You pay for it in youth, in pride, in heartbreak. And the interest never stops.”

Jeeny: quietly “But you still pay it. Because the alternative is ignorance — and that’s a kind of poverty that never ends.”

Jack: nodding slowly “Yeah. So maybe all this — the mistakes, the bruises — maybe they’re just tuition.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Exactly. The world’s most brutal university.”

Jack: softly “And the only one that teaches what matters.”

Host: The train doors closed, and the whistle blew once — a long, low note that sounded almost like forgiveness. Jack stood, shouldering his bag, but he didn’t board. He just watched the train disappear into the distance — a silver ghost carrying other stories, other lessons.

And as the platform fell silent again, Roger Ascham’s words lingered like the echo of an old truth rediscovered:

That wisdom, real wisdom,
is not given,
but earned —
in the currency of heartbreak, error, and time.

That the most expensive lessons
come from the moments
we wish we could forget.

That the price of understanding
is always the innocence we lose to gain it.

And yet, for all its cost,
wisdom is the only thing
that makes the pain profitable —
the only wealth
that grows in the soil of what once hurt.

Because in the end,
to live without scars
is to have never truly learned
what it means
to be human.

Fade out.