The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of

Host:
The night was quiet, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and coffee grounds. Inside a dimly lit café, the walls hummed with the low sound of a piano recording—a melancholic prelude by Glenn Gould. The notes fell like gentle raindrops, one by one, into the silence between two souls sitting opposite each other.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes reflecting the streetlight like shards of steel. His hands rested on the table, fingers tapping to the rhythm of the music, his mind elsewhere—maybe lost in some logic, some reason that the world demanded.

Jeeny sat across from him, her small frame wrapped in a woolen shawl, her dark hair falling like ink over her shoulders. She was silent, watching, her brown eyes deep with thought, as if the piano itself was speaking to her in a language Jack could never quite hear.

The clock on the wall ticked slowly. Then Jack broke the silence.

Jack:
You know, Gould said something about art—that it’s not about some rush of adrenaline, but the construction of wonder and serenity. Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? But tell me, Jeeny, who has the luxury for serenity anymore? Art isn’t a lifelong construction, it’s a momentary escape. Like this coffee. You drink it, you feel something, then it’s gone.

Jeeny:
Maybe that’s the problem, Jack. We’ve taught ourselves to consume beauty the same way we consume entertainment. Gould didn’t mean for art to be a drug. He meant it to be a garden—something you tend to, grow with, over a lifetime. Serenity isn’t given; it’s cultivated.

Host:
A car passed outside, its headlights briefly flashing across the window, painting their faces with fleeting light. Jack’s eyes narrowed; Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of her cup like one tracing the edge of a memory.

Jack:
Cultivated? You talk like life gives us soil to plant anything in. Art doesn’t feed the hungry or heal the sick. It’s a luxury of those who already have peace. The rest of us—well, we need that rush, that moment of release, before the grind starts again.

Jeeny:
And yet, even in the worst of times, art appears. Look at the trenches of World War I—soldiers wrote poems while bombs fell around them. They didn’t need luxury, Jack. They needed meaning. They needed to remember that beauty still existed, even if only in words.

Jack:
Or maybe they just needed to forget. Maybe those poems were morphine, not medicine.

Jeeny:
But what’s wrong with that? Even morphine tells us we’re still alive enough to feel the pain.

Host:
The piano swelled, the notes rising and falling like waves on a dark shore. The café seemed to shrink, the air between them dense with unspoken things.

Jack:
You always make it sound noble, Jeeny. But art is just decoration—a painting on a crumbling wall. We admire it, but the wall still falls. Look at how people consume music today. Playlists, algorithms, thirty-second clips. Art is no longer a temple; it’s a market.

Jeeny:
Maybe that’s true. But even in that market, some still find the sacred. You can’t kill what art represents. You can only forget it for a while. Gould’s serenity isn’t for consumers; it’s for seekers. For those who listen beyond the noise.

Jack:
You really think wonder can survive commerce?

Jeeny:
It always has. Van Gogh died poor, but his paintings still breathe. Bach was forgotten for a century, then rediscovered—by Gould himself. Art doesn’t need money to endure. It just needs one soul who refuses to stop listening.

Host:
Jeeny’s voice had grown firmer, her eyes now bright with conviction. Jack leaned back, exhaling smoke, his face half-hidden in shadow.

Jack:
You talk about souls as if everyone still has one. But look around. Cities are built on distraction. People scroll more than they see. Art has become background noise—something to fill the silence while they work, commute, cook.

Jeeny:
That’s because we’re afraid of the silence, Jack. And that’s exactly why art matters. It teaches us how to be still, how to listen. Serenity isn’t the absence of noise—it’s the ability to find harmony inside it.

Jack:
Sounds poetic. But tell me, when you’re late on rent, when the world feels like it’s on fire, where’s this harmony supposed to come from?

Jeeny:
From the same place it always came from. From the part of us that still wonders. When Picasso painted Guernica, he didn’t escape war—he confronted it with art. That’s what Gould meant, Jack. It’s not a momentary high. It’s a long struggle toward peace.

Host:
Jack’s jaw tightened. The light flickered. The piano piece ended, and the room felt emptier for a moment.

Jack:
So you think art saves us?

Jeeny:
Not saves—reminds. It reminds us we’re still human, even when the world tries to turn us into machines.

Jack:
And what if that’s not enough?

Jeeny:
Then maybe nothing ever will be. But I’d rather live with wonder than die numb.

Host:
The pause that followed was heavy, like the air before a storm. Jack’s eyes flickered, not with anger, but with a kind of tiredness. The kind that comes from years of not believing.

Jack:
You know, there was a time I played the piano too. When I was a kid. My mother used to say that music would teach me patience. But all I remember is how much I hated the practice. The endless repetition. I wanted the rush of the performance, not the discipline of the process.

Jeeny:
That’s exactly it, Jack. Gould would’ve said the process is the art. The practice is where serenity hides. Maybe you gave it up before you found it.

Jack:
Maybe. Or maybe serenity is just what people say when they’ve accepted that life won’t give them what they wanted.

Jeeny:
Or maybe it’s what they find when they stop demanding it.

Host:
The rain had started again, tapping softly against the glass. The streetlights blurred into golden halos outside. Jack watched the drops, his expression loosening.

Jack:
You ever wonder, Jeeny, if Gould was lonely? I mean, the man quit performing, locked himself in a studio, and recorded alone for years. Maybe his serenity was just isolation wearing a halo.

Jeeny:
Of course he was lonely. But that’s the price of truth sometimes. He wasn’t running from the world—he was listening to it more deeply than anyone else could. He found God in the counterpoint of notes.

Jack:
Or maybe he just couldn’t bear people anymore.

Jeeny:
Maybe both. But even in his loneliness, he gave the world something eternal. That’s what art does—it transforms even isolation into communion.

Host:
Jeeny’s words hung in the air like the last note of a melody. Jack’s eyes softened. For the first time, his lips curved—not quite a smile, but close.

Jack:
You make it sound so... holy. Maybe that’s the real purpose of art—not to make us happy, but to make us silent for a while. To make us listen.

Jeeny:
Exactly. To make us listen, and in that listening, to build something inside that doesn’t crumble with the world.

Host:
The rain slowed. The music on the speaker began again—this time, the Goldberg Variations, each note like a breath of light.

Jack leaned back, his eyes half-closed, the weight in his chest easing. Jeeny watched him quietly, her hand resting on her cup, warm from the ceramic and the moment itself.

The café glowed faintly, the world outside still dark, but somehow less heavy.

Jeeny:
Maybe Gould was right, Jack. Art isn’t an escape. It’s a home you build—slowly, patiently, one note, one word, one brushstroke at a time.

Jack:
And maybe that home is the only place left where we can still feel at peace.

Host:
Outside, the rain stopped. A thin beam of moonlight slipped through the clouds, touching the table between them. The sound of Gould’s piano filled the room, soft and infinite—as if the music itself had become the serenity they had been searching for all along.

And for a long, quiet moment, neither of them spoke again.