Being past turns subjective states into thing-like objective facts

Evidence

Between past and present there is an absolute heterogeneity; and if I can not enter the past, it is because the past is. The only way by which I could be it is for me myself to become in-itself in order to lose myself in it in the form of identification; this by definition is denied me. In fact that shame which I experienced yesterday and which was shame for itself is always shame in the present, and its essence can still be described as for-itself. But its being is no longer for itself since it no longer exists as reflection-reflecting. Though capable of description as for-itself, it simply is. The past is given as a for-itself become in-itself. That shame, so long as I live it, is not what it is. Now that I was it, I can say: it was shame. It has become what it was—behind me. It has the permanence and the constancy of the in-itself; it is at its date for eternity; it has the total adherence of the in-itself to itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 434 (#expands, via linked claim)

As soon as a consciousness is made-past, it is what I have to be in the form of the “was.” Consequently when I turn back toward my consciousness of yesterday, it preserves its intentional significance and its meaning as subjectivity, but, as we have seen, it is fixed; it is outside like a thing, since the past is in-itself. The motive becomes then that of which there is consciousness. … But as the motive is in-itself and as the cause is objective, they are presented as a dyad without ontological distinction; we have seen, indeed, that our past is lost in the midst of the world. That is why we put them on the same level and why we are able to speak of the causes and of the motives of an action as if they could enter into conflict or both concur in determined proportion in a decision. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1092 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The past is value reversed, being fixed in-itself as pure gratuitous fact — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 436; The past yields no imperative, being only indicative fact; Past actions become irrevocable facts the for-itself cannot escape — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 495 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The past is a for-itself that has hardened into an in-itself #expands (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 434
• Past motives become objective things, collapsing the distinction between cause and motive #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1092
• Freedom can objectify its own past, rupturing temporal continuity with the instant #exemplifies (0.80)