Freedom unifies past, present, and future into a single project.

Evidence

Since, on the contrary, it is consciousness which temporalizes itself, we must conceive of the original choice as unfolding time and being one with the unity of the three ekstases. … To choose ourselves is to nihilate ourselves; that is, to cause a future to come to make known to us what we are by conferring a meaning on our past. … Thus there is not a succession of instants separated by nothingnesses—as with Descartes—such that my choice at the instant t can not act on my choice of the instant t. … Thus freedom, choice, nihilation, temporalization are all one and the same thing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1122 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

An example may make this point clearer. The past of a retired soldier under the Restoration is to have been a hero of the retreat from Russia. And what we have explained just now enables us to understand that this past itself is a free choice of the future. It is by choosing not to join in with the government of Louis XVIII and the new customs, by choosing until the end to hope for the triumphal return of the Emperor, by choosing even to conspire to hasten this return and to prefer to be a retired soldier rather than an active solider that the old soldier of Napoleon chooses for himself a past as a hero of Beresina. Another soldier who had formed the project of going over to the new government would certainly not have chosen the same past. But conversely, if we are considering only one retired solider, if he lives in almost indecent poverty, if he is embittered, and if he longs for the Emperor’s return, this is because he was a hero of the retreat from Russia. We must be sure to understand this: the past does not act before any constituting recovery, and it does not in any way act deterministically; but once the past “soldier of the Empire” has been chosen, then the conduct of the for-itself realizes this past. There is even no difference between the soldier’s choosing this past and his realizing it by his behavior. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1192 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The past is a free choice made from the present project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1192; A place’s meaning is fixed only by the future ends toward which freedom projects.; Freedom, choice, nihilation, and temporalization are one single act — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1122 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Past in suspense, present expecting, and future free project are one reality. #corroborates (0.93)
• Freedom, choice, nihilation, and temporalization are one single act #corroborates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1122
• The past is a free choice made from the present project #expands (0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1192
• Freedom is the original upsurge that posits one’s ultimate ends. #expands (0.85)
• A place’s meaning is fixed only by the future ends toward which freedom projects. #expands (0.82)
• The term ‘project’ links freedom and contingency in historical determination. #expands (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 104
• Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075