night

We find ourselves bound, first without, then within, by the nature of our social catagorizaton. And escape is not effected through a bitter railing against this trap; it is as if this striving were the only motion needed to spring the trap upon us. We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely though our dependence on this reality that we are endlessly betrayed. Society is held together with the legend, myth, coercion, fear, that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. From this void - ourselves - it is the function of society to protect us; but it is only this void, our unknown selves, demanding, forever, a new act of creation, which can save us - 'from the evil that is the world'.

James Baldwin - Everybody's Protest Novel