They always say time changes things, but you actually have to

Host: The loft was full of light and memory — wide windows spilling the late afternoon sun over scattered canvases, half-finished paintings, and the faint hum of a record spinning something too old to be ironic. Dust floated in the air like particles of forgotten genius.

The walls were an explosion of color — Warhol prints, photographs, and scribbles pinned between them like unfinished thoughts. It was the kind of place where creation felt equal parts sacred and exhausted.

Jack sat on a paint-splattered stool, his sleeves rolled, his hands stained with the ghosts of color. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against a table cluttered with brushes and open sketchbooks. In the middle of it all, taped to the wall between them, was a quote scrawled in bold black ink:

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” — Andy Warhol.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder if Warhol really believed that — or if he just said it to sound clever?”

Jack: “Doesn’t matter. He was right either way.”

Jeeny: “You say that like change is easy.”

Jack: “No. I say it like it’s necessary.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t time a kind of change in itself?”

Jack: “No. Time is a stage. Change is the actor. Nothing happens unless someone walks out and does the damn scene.”

Host: The sunlight struck his face, catching in his grey eyes — eyes that had seen too many restarts, too many endings disguised as new beginnings. Jeeny crossed her arms, her voice steady but threaded with curiosity.

Jeeny: “So you don’t believe in patience.”

Jack: “Patience is what people call paralysis when they’re too scared to admit they’re standing still.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s sprinted too long.”

Jack: “And you sound like someone who’s still waiting for the starting gun.”

Host: The record crackled softly in the background — a song that felt both old and urgent, the melody hanging between nostalgia and demand.

Jeeny: “You make it sound like change is a choice you can just make. But what about the kind you can’t control? The kind that time forces on you — loss, aging, endings?”

Jack: “Those aren’t change. Those are consequences. Change is what you do in response.”

Jeeny: “That’s cruelly simple.”

Jack: “No, it’s simple because it’s true. Time is neutral — it doesn’t heal or destroy. It just passes. The rest is on us.”

Host: A gust of wind pushed through the cracked window, fluttering a few of the loose papers taped to the wall. The quote trembled slightly, the ink catching the golden light.

Jeeny: “You know, I think Warhol meant something softer. He spent his life observing — transforming the ordinary into art. I think he meant that change isn’t passive, but it’s also not violent. It’s reimagining.”

Jack: “Reimagining doesn’t pay rent.”

Jeeny: “But it feeds the soul.”

Jack: “You sound like someone who believes meaning can be painted.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like someone who’s afraid to start the next canvas.”

Host: Silence filled the room, heavy but alive. The smell of turpentine hung in the air, that particular perfume of creation and decay. Jack picked up a brush, twirling it absently between his fingers.

Jack: “You ever notice how everyone blames time? ‘Time will tell.’ ‘Time will fix it.’ ‘Give it time.’ It’s the easiest lie in the world. Time doesn’t tell, it just watches. It doesn’t fix, it fades. It doesn’t give — it takes.”

Jeeny: “You talk like someone who’s run out of it.”

Jack: “Maybe I have.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s your art — learning to create faster than life can erase you.”

Jack: “And you think that’s wisdom?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it’s defiance. Which is even better.”

Host: The light shifted, turning orange, then amber — the color of endings pretending to be beginnings.

Jeeny: “You know, there’s something deeply ironic about Warhol saying this. He built his fame by repeating what already existed — soup cans, Marilyns, money. But what made it art was that he dared to frame it differently. Maybe that’s the kind of change he meant.”

Jack: “So... perspective?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. He didn’t change the object. He changed the context. That’s how real transformation works — not by destroying what is, but by re-seeing it.”

Jack: “So maybe reflection is the real revolution.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But reflection without action is just self-portraiture.”

Jack: “And action without reflection?”

Jeeny: “Graffiti on your own life.”

Host: The sun dipped below the skyline now, leaving the loft washed in half-light and shadow. The record ended with a faint scratch, then silence.

Jack looked at the quote again — the paper slightly torn at the edges, the ink still bold.

Jack: “You know, I used to think time was the artist. That it shaped us, sculpted us, decided what we’d become. But I think Warhol was saying something more dangerous.”

Jeeny: “That we’re the artists?”

Jack: “No. That we’re the clay and the sculptor both — and the only tragedy is when we wait for someone else to start carving.”

Jeeny: “And yet, most of us do. We wait for the season, the opportunity, the sign.”

Jack: “And in waiting, we age into spectators.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why art exists — to remind us to move.”

Host: The night had settled fully now. The city beyond the window glowed like a restless organism — light, motion, promise. Jack dipped the brush into paint and, without looking, swiped a stroke across a blank canvas. A bold, careless line — imperfect, alive.

Jeeny watched him quietly, her eyes softening.

Jeeny: “There. That’s it. Change doesn’t wait for clarity — it begins in confusion.”

Jack: “You think that line means something?”

Jeeny: “It means you stopped waiting.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s enough.”

Jeeny: “It always is.”

Host: The camera pulled back slowly — the two of them surrounded by color, fragments of ideas, and the hum of creation returning to life. The quote on the wall caught the last glint of city light before fading into shadow.

And as the faint brushstrokes began to form something unnamed on the canvas, Andy Warhol’s words seemed to whisper through the room like a challenge and a benediction both:

that time is not a sculptor,
but a frame,
and inside it, every soul must choose
whether to be observer or artist.

For the truth of change,
as Warhol saw it —
and as Jack and Jeeny had now begun to live it —
is simple and unforgiving:

nothing moves until you do.