Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone

Host: The night was humid, wrapped in the murmur of a city that refused to sleep. Streetlights bled amber halos across the wet pavement, where cars hissed like snakes gliding through mist. In a small café tucked between shuttered stores, Jack and Jeeny sat opposite each other. The rain had just stopped, leaving behind the scent of asphalt and coffee—a scent of afterthoughts.

Jack’s face was partly in shadow, the smoke from his cigarette curling like a ghost between them. Jeeny watched the flame from the candle on their table, her eyes reflecting its trembling light. There was a silence, the kind that only happens when two souls are thinking about what it means to exist.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think, Jack… what’s left of us when all this—” she gestured at the city, the lights, the noise “—fades? Gene Tierney once said, ‘Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone, little is left except the need to be useful.’”

Jack: “Useful.” He exhaled smoke and gave a short laugh. “That’s a word we throw around to justify our survival, Jeeny. Usefulness is just a currency—another form of wealth. You stop being useful, and the world forgets you faster than fame ever could.”

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly what she meant, Jack. Fame, beauty, even money—they’re just costumes. Temporary masks. When they fall, what remains is the human need to matter, to give, to be of service to something greater.”

Host: The candle flame flickered, throwing shadows across Jeeny’s face. There was a soft defiance in her voice, a warmth trying to reach across the table toward the coldness of Jack’s reason.

Jack: “Service? That sounds romantic. But tell me—useful to whom? To a society that will replace you the moment you fail to produce? To a system that uses and discards its people like batteries?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not to the system, Jack. Maybe to each other.”

Host: Her words hung in the air like rain about to fall again. Jack’s jaw tightened. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

Jack: “You really believe that, don’t you? That kindness or connection can outlast the rot of time?”

Jeeny: “I do. Think of people like Mother Teresa. She had no wealth, no beauty in the worldly sense, no fame at first. Yet her usefulness—her compassion—became her legacy. She lived a life where being useful meant saving others from despair. And that kind of usefulness never fades.”

Jack: “Mother Teresa is an exception, not a model. Most people can’t afford to be that kind of ‘useful’. They’re too busy just surviving.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe usefulness starts there—with helping others survive.”

Host: The rain began again, lightly, like whispers against the window. The café felt smaller, more intimate, as though the walls were listening. A busker’s guitar could be heard outside—its notes fragile, like truths told in low voices.

Jack: “You think being useful gives life meaning. But what about those who’ve lost everything—the old, the forgotten, the broken? Are they useless now? Do they stop having value because they can’t serve anyone?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Their value doesn’t end—it changes. Sometimes just being, just existing as a memory, a story, a lesson, is useful. Even the fallen leaves feed the soil. Isn’t that a kind of purpose?”

Host: Jack rubbed his temple, grinding his cigarette into the ashtray. His eyes drifted toward the window, where raindrops slid down like slow tears.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic. But poetry doesn’t feed people. Usefulness without utility is just a fantasy. When the factory worker loses his job, when the actor fades from the screen, when the beauty queen grows old—no one claps for their ‘changed purpose.’ The world moves on.”

Jeeny: “And yet, some of them find something new. Look at Anthony Hopkins—he said that after fame, what he wanted most was to teach, to be useful to young actors. Or Jane Goodall, who turned her fame into activism. They chose to be useful, not because the world demanded it, but because the soul does.”

Jack: “So you think it’s the soul, not society, that craves usefulness?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because the heart knows what the **world forgets—that being useful isn’t about utility, it’s about meaning.”

Host: The silence between them deepened. The rain had stopped again, and a thin mist rose from the street. Light from passing cars rippled across their faces like fading memories. Jack’s expression softened, as if he were remembering something.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my father used to fix old radios. He’d sit for hours in the garage, soldering wires, replacing knobs. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter how small you are, Jack, if you can fix something broken, you matter.’ I used to think he meant radios. Now I think… he meant people.”

Jeeny: “He did. That’s what usefulness truly is. Repairing what’s broken—in machines, in people, in yourself.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it filled the space like music. Jack’s eyes met hers, and for the first time, the cynicism in them flickered with something else—tenderness, maybe, or understanding.

Jack: “Maybe Gene Tierney was right. Wealth, beauty, fame—they all fade. But the need to be useful… it’s like a hunger that doesn’t die.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s the only hunger that feeds others as it feeds us.”

Host: The clock behind the counter ticked, steady and slow. The café owner turned off one of the lights, leaving them in a pocket of warmth surrounded by the darkness of the city.

Jack: “So what do we do, Jeeny? When everything’s stripped away—our looks, our jobs, our name—what’s left to give?”

Jeeny: “Ourselves. The most useful thing we can ever offer is our presence. The world is starving for people who care.”

Host: Jack nodded, his fingers tracing the rim of his empty cup. The rain had begun once more, but softer now, like a refrain returning to its melody.

Jack: “You always have a way of making the world sound less hopeless.”

Jeeny: “Not less hopeless, Jack. Just more possible.”

Host: The camera of the night would have pulled back then—past the table, past the window, past the street, where a single lamppost still burned against the darkness. Inside, two figures sat in the flicker of light, their shadows meeting on the floor—a quiet testament to what remains when all else fades.

The scene ended not with a word, but with a look—and in that look, something useful was born: the understanding that to be useful is to be human, and to be human is to endure, even after the spotlight has gone.