Anguish cannot be hidden because flight from it is itself a mode of consciousness

Evidence

In this connection it must be understood not only that I must of necessity perpetually carry within me what I wish to flee but also that I must aim at the object of my flight in order to flee it. This means that anguish, the intentional aim of anguish, and a flight from anguish toward reassuring myths must all be given in the unity of the same consciousness. In a word, I flee in order not to know, but I can not avoid knowing that I am fleeing; and the flight from anguish is only a mode of becoming conscious of anguish. Thus anguish, properly speaking, can be neither hidden nor avoided. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 259

Categorization

• XREF: The thesis that flight makes one more conscious of what is fled feeds directly into Beauvoir’s account of bad faith as inescapable. — connects to: Anguish is fear of oneself while fear targets beings in the world — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 236; Anguish arises when consciousness sees itself cut from its essence by nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 246; The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: A paradigm-shifting closure: since veiling requires aiming at what one veils, anguish is structurally unhideable — the full paradox lands as a cohesive whole.
• DEFINE: Establishes the technical meaning of anguish as incapable of concealment, grounding the next chapter’s bad-faith machinery.

Broader Connections

• Distraction is consciousness fleeing anguish by disowning its own possibilities #exemplifies (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1473
• The supposed intuition of freedom is a constructed evasion of anguish #expands (0.85)
• Existing consciousness cannot veto insights that expose its own self-contradiction #corroborates (0.80)
• Flight into contemplation masks a refusal to face worldly ambiguity #exemplifies (0.75)