Pragmatism is not always a good thing. Experience is not always a

Host: The train station was half-empty, echoing with the distant hum of late-night arrivals. The floor glistened under dim fluorescent lights, slick with rain tracked in from outside. A storm brewed beyond the glass — wind howled through the narrow corridors, sheets of water slapping against the windows like restless hands.

At the far end of the waiting area, Jack sat on a wooden bench, his coat damp, a half-crushed cigarette hanging between his fingers. Across from him, Jeeny stood by a vending machine, her reflection fractured in its scratched glass. She turned as the loudspeaker crackled — a voice announcing yet another delayed train.

They were both travelers, but of different kinds: Jack, moving from place to place to escape his own thoughts; Jeeny, chasing something unseen but deeply felt. The night, heavy with unsaid words, pressed close around them.

Jeeny: “Keith Ellison once said, ‘Pragmatism is not always a good thing. Experience is not always a good thing.’”
She walked toward him, her steps soft but deliberate. “Do you ever think about that, Jack? That maybe being too practical can kill something inside us?”

Jack: “No,” he said flatly, lighting his cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his sharp features. “Being practical keeps you alive. Keeps you from doing stupid things. Idealism’s a luxury for people who’ve never had to watch the world burn.”

Jeeny: “Alive doesn’t mean living. You can survive every day and still be dead inside.”

Host: The wind rattled the station doors. A flickering lightbulb above them cast an uneven rhythm, like the beating of a tired heart.

Jack: “You sound like one of those dreamers who think emotion can fix the world. Pragmatism built cities, cured diseases, put food on tables. What did idealism build? Broken hearts and failed revolutions.”

Jeeny: “Pragmatism built systems, Jack. But systems don’t breathe. They don’t love. They don’t bleed when the world goes wrong.”
She sat beside him now, her coat brushing his. “Look around — the world is practical, efficient, and dying of apathy. People calculate instead of feeling.”

Jack: “That’s just survival. You get burned enough times, you learn not to touch the fire.”

Jeeny: “And in learning that, you forget what warmth feels like.”

Host: Her words lingered, hovering between them like smoke in still air. Jack looked down, the ash of his cigarette glowing faintly before dropping to the wet floor.

Jeeny: “You say experience teaches us. But sometimes experience only teaches fear — to stop trying, to stop trusting. Isn’t that just another kind of blindness?”

Jack: “Experience is the only teacher that doesn’t lie. Every scar I’ve got, every failure — they taught me more than faith ever did.”

Jeeny: “And yet you sit here, alone, in a station at midnight, pretending you’re okay with the lessons.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He stared at her — not with anger, but with the quiet ache of someone suddenly seen. The rain outside fell harder, like the world itself was pushing them toward confession.

Jack: “You don’t understand. Experience keeps you from being naïve. From making the same mistakes.”

Jeeny: “Or from ever taking the risk again. Isn’t that worse?”
She leaned closer, her voice low, almost a whisper. “You think pragmatism protects you, but maybe it’s just fear dressed as wisdom.”

Host: The lights flickered, casting both their faces in brief flashes of shadow and glow.

Jack: “You’re talking like risk is always noble. But look at history. How many people destroyed everything chasing dreams? Think of the 2008 crash — men convinced their ‘vision’ would change the world, and it wrecked millions of lives. Pragmatism could’ve saved them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But pragmatism also built the world that made that greed possible. Pragmatism without conscience isn’t wisdom — it’s just efficient selfishness.”

Jack: “You make it sound like hope is a strategy.”

Jeeny: “It is. The only one that’s ever changed anything real.”

Host: Her eyes met his — dark, unwavering, lit from within by something he couldn’t name. For a moment, Jack looked away, out toward the platform, where a lone worker swept rainwater from the tracks, his movements slow, persistent, meaningless — or perhaps sacred.

Jeeny: “Experience can turn hearts to stone, Jack. You’ve seen too much pain, so you built walls out of logic. But even walls crumble when they’re hollow.”

Jack: “And what’s your answer, Jeeny? Leap without looking? Feel without thinking?”

Jeeny: “No. Just to remember that not every calculation can measure the human spirit. That sometimes, the right thing isn’t the reasonable one.”

Host: The train horn wailed in the distance — long, mournful, almost human.

Jack: “You sound like you’re quoting a fairy tale.”

Jeeny: “Maybe fairy tales are just memories of a world before we called cynicism ‘maturity.’”

Host: He let out a low laugh, but it wasn’t mocking — more like the first crack in a frozen lake.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? You remind me of my mother. She used to say the same things. Believed everyone could change, no matter what they’d done.”

Jeeny: “She sounds like someone who still believed in fire.”

Jack: “She died believing in people who didn’t deserve it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what makes her human.”

Host: The sound of the arriving train filled the station, its brakes screeching, its metal sighing as it came to rest. Steam rose from beneath its wheels, curling around their faces like ghosts of memory.

Jack: “You really think pragmatism is a bad thing?”

Jeeny: “Not bad. Just incomplete. It builds walls but not bridges. It teaches caution but not courage. It remembers pain but forgets wonder.”

Jack: “And experience?”

Jeeny: “Experience without reflection is just repetition. It turns wisdom into habit, and habit into fear.”

Host: Jack stared at the train doors, waiting to open. His reflection wavered in the glass, two versions of himself — one tired, one uncertain, both caught between departure and return.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe pragmatism kept me safe, but it also kept me small.”

Jeeny: “And maybe experience made you wise — but it also made you weary. You don’t have to let it decide everything.”

Host: A soft chime signaled boarding. The doors slid open, spilling a faint gold light onto the platform.

Jack: “You know, I used to think idealists were dangerous.”

Jeeny: “We are. But not because we’re foolish — because we remind people that safety isn’t the same as life.”

Host: He stood, pulling his bag over his shoulder. For a long moment, he just looked at her — eyes grey, searching.

Jack: “You’re not getting on?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m waiting for the next one. I like to see the night end before I move.”

Jack: “That’s not very practical.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: He smiled — faint, genuine, almost shy. Then he stepped into the light of the train, the doors closing behind him with a quiet hiss. Jeeny watched him go, her reflection dissolving as the train began to move, streaking past like a silver ghost in the storm.

Outside, the rain stopped. The sky cracked open with the faintest hint of dawn.

Host: The station fell silent, save for the hum of the vending machine and the soft echo of retreating wheels. Jeeny turned toward the window, watching the light grow, whispering softly — not to anyone, but to the empty air:

Jeeny: “Pragmatism keeps the body alive. But wonder — wonder keeps the soul.”

Host: And as the first sunbeam touched the tracks, the station — and the world — seemed, for a moment, to remember how to dream again.