Being present in a place does not let one realize being that place

Evidence

Thus we are surrounded by an infinity of unrealizables. Certain among these unrealizables we feel vividly as irritating absences. Who has not felt a profound disappointment at not being able after his return from a long exile to realize that he “is in Paris.” The objects are there and offer themselves familiarly, but I am only an absence, only the pure nothingness which is necessary in order that there may be a Paris. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1236

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the unrealizable — a category of being that cannot be achieved from within a situation — through the concrete case of returning to Paris.
• XREF: Feeds directly into Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity on situated freedom and the impossibility of achieving one’s situation as a completed object. — connects to: Passing through a place means simultaneously being there and not being there — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 640; Having a place requires not being wholly absorbed in that place — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1169