Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone

Host: The afternoon light slipped through the narrow blinds of the studio, spilling across the dust-filled air like threads of golden smoke. Outside, the city pulsed — cars, voices, distant laughter — but inside, the room felt suspended between time and memory.

An old vinyl record spun quietly in the corner, its melody soft, uncertain, like something half-remembered. The walls were lined with canvases, half-finished — colors bleeding into silence, shapes not yet born.

Jack sat by the window, his hands stained with charcoal, a small sketchbook open before him. Jeeny stood across the room, arranging brushes in a chipped jar, her hair loose, catching the last light of day.

Her voice came quietly, almost as a whisper meant for the air, not for him.
“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” — Franz Kafka.

Jeeny: “Isn’t that something, Jack? The idea that youth isn’t an age, but a way of seeing. A way of believing the world still holds wonder.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Kafka must have been delusional that day. Beauty fades — that’s the rule. The young see beauty because they haven’t lived long enough to know how temporary it is.”

Host: The sunlight cut across Jack’s face, tracing the tired lines around his eyes, lines carved not by age but by disillusionment. Jeeny watched him quietly, her fingers resting on the rim of the jar, still, thoughtful.

Jeeny: “Temporary doesn’t mean meaningless. The cherry blossom falls, the light fades — that’s what makes it beautiful. You’re only old, Jack, when you stop noticing the blossom at all.”

Jack: (closing the sketchbook, his tone sharp) “That’s easy to say when you still believe in magic. But beauty doesn’t feed you. It doesn’t keep you warm. The world doesn’t reward people for seeing beauty; it rewards people who survive it.”

Host: The record crackled, its melody fading into static. The room seemed to hold its breath.

Jeeny: “And yet, the ones who survive without seeing beauty aren’t really living, are they? What’s the point of breathing if you can’t feel awe?”

Jack: “Awe doesn’t pay rent.”

Jeeny: “Neither does cynicism.”

Host: The silence stretched between them like an invisible wall. Outside, a child’s laughter echoed faintly, carried on the wind — distant, pure, unknowing. Jeeny turned toward the window, her eyes following the sound, and her voice softened.

Jeeny: “When I was little, I used to sit by the window every morning just to watch how sunlight hit the curtains. I thought it was the most magical thing in the world — that quiet glow before the day began. I still look for that same light. Maybe that’s what Kafka meant.”

Jack: “You still do that? Watch sunlight on curtains?”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Every chance I get.”

Jack: (shaking his head) “That’s nostalgia, not youth. You’re not young because you look at the light — you’re young because you think it still means something.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because it does. Youth is faith in meaning.”

Host: Jack rose, pacing slowly to the window. The city stretched before him — vast, gray, beautiful in its exhaustion. He pressed his hand to the glass, as if testing whether the world outside was still real.

Jack: “You ever think Kafka was just trying to comfort himself? The man lived in shadows. Maybe ‘seeing beauty’ was his only way to stay sane.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But even that’s beautiful — that he tried. That’s what separates the weary from the wise, Jack. The wise keep looking even when it hurts to see.”

Jack: “You think I’m weary.”

Jeeny: (softly) “I think you’ve forgotten how to look.”

Host: The words hung in the air like a small, deliberate wound. Jack’s jaw tightened. He turned away from the window, but his eyes betrayed him — a flicker of something raw, vulnerable.

Jack: “Do you know what it’s like to lose the ability to see beauty, Jeeny? To wake up and everything looks like noise — color without meaning, sound without song?”

Jeeny: “Yes. And that’s why I fight for it. Every day. Because losing that sight is worse than losing youth — it’s losing the soul.”

Host: The sun had dipped lower now, its light fractured into amber shards against the studio walls. The dust swirled like slow, suspended time. Jeeny walked to one of the canvases, her fingers tracing a streak of blue, still wet.

Jeeny: “When I paint, I’m not trying to capture beauty — I’m trying to find it again. In color, in motion, in imperfection. Maybe youth isn’t the ability to see beauty — maybe it’s the courage to keep searching for it.”

Jack: (quietly) “Even when it hides from you?”

Jeeny: “Especially then.”

Host: Jack looked at her — really looked — as if for the first time that day. The way the light caught her hair, the way her eyes carried warmth like a flame refusing to go out. Something shifted in him, small but unmistakable.

Jack: “You think that’s what keeps us young? Searching?”

Jeeny: “No. Seeing. Even after all the reasons not to.”

Jack: “And what if the world you’re looking at is ugly?”

Jeeny: “Then you look deeper, until you find something worth loving. Because there always is.”

Host: The record began again — a new song, soft, uncertain. Outside, the sky was bleeding into twilight, the kind that blurs the line between day and night. Jack sat back down, his hands trembling slightly, as if rediscovering a forgotten language.

Jack: “I used to see beauty everywhere. In puddles after rain, in the way smoke rises, even in people. Then life started asking for proof. For reasons. I stopped seeing. Started calculating.”

Jeeny: “And did it make you happy?”

Jack: “No. Just safe.”

Jeeny: “Safety’s a cage with nice curtains, Jack. Youth isn’t about years — it’s about wonder. You lost it because you stopped wondering.”

Host: Jack ran a finger down the side of his sketchbook, smudging the charcoal lines. Then, slowly, he opened it again. On the page was a drawing of the window, the faint outline of Jeeny’s silhouette standing beside it. He stared at it for a long time, his expression softening.

Jack: “You ever think beauty might be what saves us?”

Jeeny: “It already does. Every time we notice it.”

Host: The light in the studio dimmed to a gentle glow. The record came to an end, the needle circling in soft, rhythmic static. Jack set down his pencil, leaned back, and exhaled.

Jeeny crossed the room, picked up the camera from the shelf — the same one she’d used for years — and pointed it at him.

Jeeny: “Smile.”

Jack: (half-laughing) “Why?”

Jeeny: “Because I want to remember this — the exact moment you started seeing again.”

Host: The shutter clicked, echoing through the quiet room like a heartbeat. Jeeny lowered the camera, her eyes bright, her mouth curved in a small, knowing smile.

Jack: “You think that’ll keep me young?”

Jeeny: “If you let it.”

Host: Outside, the streetlights flickered to life, one by one — tiny suns against the coming dark. The city hummed on, indifferent yet full of secret beauty for those still willing to see it.

And as the two of them sat in the fading light, surrounded by half-finished art and forgotten dreams, the air between them shimmered with something rare — not youth itself, but its echo:
the quiet, stubborn ability to see beauty and call it life.