People don't want to experience change; they just want to wake

Host: The streetlights hummed softly in the rain. Their yellow glow smeared across the wet asphalt, turning every puddle into a trembling reflection of the world — one that seemed both familiar and broken. The city had gone quiet for the night, yet beneath that quiet, something restless stirred.

Jack sat beneath a flickering neon sign that read “OPEN 24 HOURS”, though the shop behind it looked like it hadn’t truly been open to anyone’s heart in years. A half-empty coffee cup sat beside him, the steam rising like faint ghosts of conversations unfinished. Jeeny approached slowly, her umbrella beaded with rain, her eyes carrying that calm kind of sadness that always made her words land deeper.

In her pocket was a small folded note — something she’d torn from an old magazine earlier that day. She laid it on the table between them, the ink slightly smudged but legible under the buzzing light.

“People don't want to experience change; they just want to wake up, and it's different.” — Chadwick Boseman.

The words hung in the air, soft yet immovable.

Jeeny: “He said that in an interview — years before anyone knew how much he was fighting. Can you imagine? A man living through pain, talking about change like it was the world’s illness.”

Jack: “Maybe it is. Everyone wants transformation without transition. Everyone wants a new life without the cost of living through it.”

Host: The rain fell harder now, a percussion of truth tapping against the tin roof. The lights inside the diner flickered, painting them both in flashes of warmth and shadow — like change itself, uncertain but constant.

Jeeny: “But that’s just it, Jack. Change isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we survive. Boseman didn’t just talk about change — he lived it quietly, without spectacle. While the world cheered his strength, he carried it in silence.”

Jack: “That’s what scares people — that change hurts. It strips you down before it builds you back. Nobody wants the breaking part, only the becoming.”

Jeeny: “But breaking is the becoming. You can’t wake up different unless the old version of you dies in your sleep.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. And brutal.”

Jeeny: “So is life.”

Host: Jack leaned back in his chair, the neon sign’s glow painting the edge of his jawline in trembling light. He looked toward the window — at the blurred reflections of cars, faces, time moving without permission.

Jack: “You know what I think, Jeeny? People don’t fear change itself. They fear being alone in it. They want the world to shift, not just themselves. They want everything around them to transform at the same time so it doesn’t feel like loss.”

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. They fear responsibility. Because real change means you can’t blame the world anymore — you have to admit it’s you.”

Jack: “You say that like you’ve lived it.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Haven’t we all?”

Host: The rain softened to a whisper. A bus passed outside, its headlights sweeping briefly across their faces — two souls caught mid-transition, neither where they were nor where they were going.

Jack: “When I was younger, I thought change meant progress — that every new thing was better than the old. But now I see most people change out of exhaustion, not evolution.”

Jeeny: “And yet, exhaustion is what leads to awakening. Sometimes the soul has to collapse before it remembers how to rise.”

Jack: “You talk like change is a religion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. The only one that proves itself through pain.”

Host: The clock behind the counter ticked steadily — mechanical, patient, immune to sentiment. The radio played softly in the background, a song about time slipping away.

Jack: “You know, Boseman didn’t just mean social change. He meant personal change. Everyone wants a new world, but no one wants to feel the discomfort of rebuilding themselves to fit inside it.”

Jeeny: “That’s because change doesn’t just move forward. It asks what part of you can’t come along. People think transformation is adding more — it’s not. It’s loss. It’s subtraction until only the true remains.”

Jack: “And what’s left, after all the subtraction?”

Jeeny: “Grace.”

Host: Her word cut through the silence like the last note of a song that lingers long after it ends. Jack’s gaze softened, his usual steel melting into reflection.

Jack: “You think grace survives in a world like this? Where everyone’s trying to fast-forward through their pain?”

Jeeny: “Grace isn’t a reward, Jack. It’s what you find in the wreckage when there’s nothing left to rush toward.”

Host: The rain outside stopped completely now, leaving behind the scent of wet earth and the glimmer of fresh puddles under the streetlights. Somewhere, the city exhaled — cleaner, quieter, momentarily reborn.

Jeeny reached across the table, resting her hand gently over Jack’s. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

Jeeny: “You can’t wake up and find it different unless you’ve first gone to sleep knowing it’s time.”

Jack: “And if you can’t sleep?”

Jeeny: “Then change comes anyway — it always does. It just hurts more when you fight it.”

Host: The candle between them sputtered, then steadied — a tiny flame surviving its own uncertainty. Jack looked at it for a long time, then at her.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what he meant. Not just about society, or art, or injustice — but about the human spirit. Everyone wants the world to be better, but no one wants to feel the ache of becoming better themselves.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The revolution we all wait for isn’t out there — it’s internal. We just keep sleeping through it.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — the neon sign flickering outside, the rain returning in a soft mist, the two figures framed in fragile light. The note on the table curled slightly at the edges as if tired of being read, but the ink — Boseman’s truth — remained bold and unblinking.

“People don’t want to experience change; they just want to wake up, and it’s different.”

Host: The scene lingered on their faces — Jack’s caught between resistance and understanding, Jeeny’s serene with the quiet conviction of someone who had already been broken and rebuilt.

The rain returned in full, washing over the streets, rooftops, and dreams of everyone still waiting for a dawn that would do the hard work for them.

And in that relentless, cleansing sound, one truth remained:

Change doesn’t happen while we sleep.

It happens when we dare to stay awake.