Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see

Host: The rain had just stopped. The city exhaled in a long, wet shimmer — puddles catching fragments of streetlight, mist rising from the cobblestones like ghosts finding their way home. The café windows glowed faintly against the dark, and inside, the smell of coffee and smoke mingled with quiet conversation.

Jack sat by the window, his reflection blurred against the glass. He looked tired, not from lack of sleep, but from carrying the kind of thoughts that weigh more than time. Across from him sat Jeeny — her hands wrapped around a cup, her eyes alive with the kind of light that doesn’t come from lamps.

It was one of those nights when the world felt paused — suspended between what was and what could be.

Jeeny: “Nikos Kazantzakis once said, ‘Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.’”

Host: Jack looked up slowly, the faintest trace of a smile breaking his stillness. His grey eyes glimmered like fogged steel.

Jack: “Change the eyes. That sounds like a poet’s version of denial.”

Jeeny: “Or survival.”

Host: Outside, a taxi hissed past through the wet street, its light slicing briefly through the windowpane. Jeeny didn’t flinch. She looked at him the way one looks at someone who’s forgotten what wonder feels like.

Jeeny: “Reality doesn’t bend, Jack. It doesn’t care. But our eyes — they can learn new shapes. That’s what Kazantzakis meant. You can’t move the mountain, but you can change the way you climb it.”

Jack: “Or you can just stop climbing altogether.”

Jeeny: “You would say that.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the words carried weight. The clock above the bar ticked steadily, a heartbeat that belonged to no one in particular.

Jack: “I just don’t buy it. Changing how you see something doesn’t make it different. The storm still comes. The bills still pile up. People still break your trust. You can squint, you can smile, but reality stays what it is — cold and indifferent.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Reality is only cold until you stop touching it. Once you face it — fully, painfully — something changes. Not the storm, but you. That’s the shift he’s talking about.”

Host: The rain started again, gentle, rhythmic — tapping softly against the window like an argument with the sky.

Jack: “So what? We’re supposed to trick ourselves into optimism? Pretend the pain is a lesson?”

Jeeny: “Not pretend — perceive. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “Explain it.”

Jeeny: “Perception isn’t lying to yourself. It’s learning to see both sides of the truth. The same street that looks like despair at night can feel like peace in the morning. The street doesn’t change — the light does. We just forget that we are the light.”

Host: Jack leaned back, eyes narrowing, his breath fogging the glass for a moment. He drew a line through it with his finger, watching the clear streak form through the blur.

Jack: “You sound like one of those mindfulness coaches.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like someone who’s afraid that changing his eyes means losing his edge.”

Host: The silence that followed wasn’t hostile. It was a space where two philosophies stood quietly, waiting for the rain to choose sides.

Jack: “Tell me this — what about injustice? War? Death? Can we just ‘change our eyes’ and make it better? You can’t smile your way through blood.”

Jeeny: “No. But you can decide whether to drown in it or to build something from the ashes. Look at Viktor Frankl — imprisoned, starved, surrounded by death — yet he found meaning. He didn’t change the world. He changed the way he saw it, and that kept him alive.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He stared into his coffee, as if the dark surface might yield a reflection of something truer than the mirror.

Jack: “Meaning doesn’t feed a man.”

Jeeny: “No. But despair kills him faster.”

Host: The rain softened, the world outside blurred again into watercolor light. Jack looked at Jeeny, and for a moment, his expression cracked — not into agreement, but into curiosity.

Jack: “You ever wonder if that kind of vision — that changing of the eyes — is just another privilege? Easy to talk about when you’re not drowning.”

Jeeny: “I think it’s the opposite. People who’ve suffered the most often see the clearest. Pain scrapes the eyes clean. You start to notice small mercies — a sunrise, a stranger’s kindness, a moment of laughter in a room full of grief. You learn to look differently because you have to.”

Host: The light flickered overhead, and the café owner turned a sign from “OPEN” to “CLOSED.” The world grew quieter, more intimate.

Jack: “So you’re saying acceptance is power.”

Jeeny: “Not acceptance — transformation. Kazantzakis didn’t want us to surrender. He wanted us to awaken. To stop being victims of what is, and become creators of how we see what is.”

Jack: “Creators.” (He chuckled softly.) “That’s a nice word. Almost sounds godlike.”

Jeeny: “We are. Every time you look at the same pain differently, you create a new world. Reality isn’t one thing — it’s a thousand mirrors waiting for your gaze.”

Host: Jack ran his thumb around the rim of his mug, thinking. The rain had stopped again, but droplets clung to the window, catching the streetlight like a thousand tiny stars.

Jack: “You ever think Kazantzakis wrote that because he was tired of feeling helpless?”

Jeeny: “Probably. Every visionary starts from helplessness. It’s the birthplace of wisdom.”

Jack: “And you — you still believe the eyes can change?”

Jeeny: “Every day. Sometimes only by a millimeter. But that’s enough to see a little more light.”

Host: The camera lingered on them — two silhouettes in the window, their reflections merging faintly with the rain-slicked glass.

Jack: “You make it sound so simple.”

Jeeny: “It’s not simple. It’s sacred.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly, the kind of smile that comes when resistance begins to crumble. He looked out at the wet streets, at the soft glow of the world reborn in water and reflection.

Jack: “Maybe the trick isn’t to change what we see… but to stop seeing through our wounds.”

Jeeny: “Yes. To see through our healing instead.”

Host: The rain started again, gentler this time — a soft applause from the sky. Jeeny finished her tea and stood, wrapping her scarf around her neck. Jack remained seated, looking out the window, but something in his face had shifted — the faintest loosening, the quietest surrender.

Jeeny: “You coming?”

Jack: “Yeah. Just… want to look a little longer.”

Host: Jeeny smiled knowingly and stepped out into the wet night, her reflection dissolving into the puddles as the door closed behind her.

Jack stayed, watching the lights ripple across the rain-soaked streets — the same city, the same weather, yet somehow not the same at all.

He reached for his coat, took a deep breath, and stood — not to escape reality, but to walk into it with different eyes.

Outside, the world shimmered — imperfect, alive, and waiting to be seen anew.