"Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden" – James Baldwin, in Giovanni's room, wrote this powerful line. Why do you think that is? Here's my take.

I've been thinking a lot about this quote from Giovanni’s Room, and I tried to come up with a personal interpretation.

Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden — even if they find it — because we are living beings. And life, by its very nature, cannot desire stillness. We are blood that flows, desire that moves.

Even when we believe we’ve reached peace, balance, happiness… something stirs within us and pushes us somewhere else. Eden becomes boring. And we can't live in boredom: when desire dies, we die too.

In a way, we cannot help but desire to live — and to truly live means never reaching full stillness. Finding Eden would be equivalent to dying, it would mean stasis.

Maybe, deep down, we can’t stay in Eden because Eden doesn’t really exist. It’s an illusion. And the moment we think we’ve reached it, it collapses.

And when that Eden depends on external agents (a person, a relationship, a situation), it lasts even less — a few fleeting moments, then reality kicks in.

What do you think? Have you read Giovanni’s Room? Have you ever felt like you were “expelled” from a place that once seemed perfect?