The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a

Host: The night was thick with fog, its silver veil coiling around the streetlamps like forgotten dreams. A small café stood at the corner of an empty square, its single light flickering over wooden tables scarred by years of talks, arguments, and confessions. The rain had just ended, leaving the asphalt gleaming like black glass. Through the window, two silhouettes faced each other — one still, one trembling slightly, as though the weight of words yet unspoken pressed against the air.

Jack: (lighting a cigarette) “You know what Nietzsche said? ‘The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.’”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Ashamed? That’s an odd kind of virtue, don’t you think? To be ashamed of creating?”

Host: The smoke curled between them, twisting into fragile rings that rose and vanished in the dim light. Outside, the city hummed in the distance — the quiet heartbeat of a world that never quite sleeps.

Jack: “It’s not odd. It’s the only honest stance. The real writer — the one who truly sees — should feel ashamed because he knows he’s just another liar dressing up his loneliness in sentences. Every word is a betrayal of what can’t be said.”

Jeeny: “Then why write at all?”

Jack: “Because silence is worse. But that doesn’t make it noble.”

Host: A long pause stretched between them. The rain had begun again, softly this time, each drop a faint whisper against the glass. Jeeny looked out at the blurred lights, her eyes reflecting the street’s shimmer, as if she were watching ghosts move through the mist.

Jeeny: “I don’t agree. A writer isn’t ashamed — they’re afraid. Afraid of what they’ll uncover. But that fear is sacred. It’s not shame; it’s reverence. When Dostoevsky wrote about guilt, when Woolf bled through her pages — do you think they were ashamed, or were they surrendering to something larger than themselves?”

Jack: “They were confessing. And confession is always a kind of shame.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Confession is courage.”

Host: Jack’s eyes narrowed, the gray within them like the sea before a storm. He leaned forward, the smoke catching the light, cutting through the space like a blade.

Jack: “Courage? You call it courage to expose your wounds for the applause of strangers? Writers are merchants of pain. They sell their grief like souvenirs. Every book is a mirror disguised as a window.”

Jeeny: “And what’s wrong with that? If your pain can heal someone, if your shame can become someone else’s strength, isn’t that sacred? Isn’t that what art is for?”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing exploitation. Look at Bukowski — his despair was turned into a brand. His misery became marketable. The more he bled, the more people paid. Don’t you see the irony?”

Jeeny: (voice rising) “But without that pain, what remains? If every writer silenced their shame, if every poet refused to speak because truth felt dirty, we’d have no light left at all. No Camus, no Baldwin, no Plath — just silence. A perfect, sterile silence.”

Host: The sound of the rain intensified, drumming on the rooftop like restless fingers. Jack stubbed out his cigarette, his hand trembling slightly. The air between them was heavy, charged — like the moment before thunder.

Jack: “Silence isn’t sterile. It’s the only honest thing left. Words distort everything they touch. You talk about truth, but the second it’s written, it’s been twisted — tamed for beauty, for readability, for comfort.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe truth isn’t meant to be pure, Jack. Maybe it’s meant to be lived through the distortion. Isn’t that what Nietzsche himself meant? That the best writer is ashamed — not because writing is false, but because it reveals too much of what’s real?”

Host: Jack’s gaze softened, the lines around his mouth deepening as though carved by long years of doubt. His voice lowered, rough, almost breaking.

Jack: “Maybe. But it still feels like theft. You steal from your soul to feed your vanity. Every paragraph is a piece of yourself you can never reclaim.”

Jeeny: “And every silence is a grave where your truth goes to die.”

Host: The café door creaked as a gust of wind slipped through, carrying the scent of wet asphalt and old leaves. Jeeny’s hands were clasped together, trembling slightly. Jack’s eyes flickered — not with anger now, but something closer to sorrow.

Jeeny: “You think shame protects authenticity. But shame also silences creation. If Kafka had been too ashamed to write his nightmares, would we have The Trial? Would we know what it feels like to drown in the machinery of our own guilt?”

Jack: “Kafka didn’t publish most of his work. He wanted it burned. Maybe he was right.”

Jeeny: “And yet his friend refused. Because even Kafka’s shame carried light. Maybe that’s the paradox — the best writers are ashamed, but they write because of it, not in spite of it.”

Host: A flash of lightning illuminated the room, washing their faces in silver. The clock ticked slowly on the wall, each second stretching thin, like the last thread holding two souls from falling apart.

Jack: (after a long silence) “You really believe art redeems shame?”

Jeeny: “I believe art transforms it. The writer who’s ashamed to write is the one who’s honest enough to know the cost of it. The one who bleeds with awareness. That’s what Nietzsche meant — not contempt for creation, but reverence so deep it feels like guilt.”

Jack: “You always find holiness in the pain.”

Jeeny: “Because pain is the doorway. You just refuse to walk through it.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his jaw tightening, a flicker of defiance in his eyes, yet beneath it, the faint shimmer of recognition. The rain softened once more, falling like a distant whisper, as though the night itself had grown weary of listening.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe shame is the writer’s conscience — a reminder that words should cost something.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The moment a writer feels proud instead of ashamed, the writing dies. Pride makes it artifice. Shame makes it human.”

Jack: “So, you think the best author is the one who bleeds and feels unworthy of the wound?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because that’s what keeps them honest. Shame humbles the hand that writes.”

Host: The rain stopped. The light over their table flickered once more, then steadied. Jack’s hand moved toward Jeeny’s cup, pushing it gently closer to her — a quiet gesture of reconciliation. Outside, the fog began to lift, revealing the faint outline of a streetlight glowing through the damp air like a promise.

Jeeny: “Maybe the writer’s shame isn’t about writing itself. It’s about daring to speak for others — to claim to understand the human heart. That kind of audacity should shame anyone.”

Jack: “And yet it’s the only kind of audacity worth having.”

Host: They sat in silence, two figures framed in the soft light of a dying lamp, surrounded by the faint aroma of coffee, smoke, and the aftertaste of truth. The world outside began to wake — a train in the distance, the faint bark of a dog, the whisper of wheels on wet streets.

Jeeny’s eyes met Jack’s — steady, alive — and in that moment, the fog cleared not just from the city, but from the small, unseen places within them both.

Host: And as the first light of morning slipped across the windowpane, it touched their faces — not as writers, not as philosophers, but as two souls momentarily unashamed of being human.