Life and action are identical in nature as transcended transcendence

Evidence

One must be conscious in order to choose, and one must choose in order to be conscious. Choice and consciousness are one and the same thing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1116 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This sounds a sensible proposal, but Beauvoir’s essay tells us to think again. For her, a man who wants to stop and navel-gaze is not as good a model as the one who commits himself to keep going. Why do we imagine that wisdom lies in inactivity and detachment, she asks? If a child says, ‘I don’t care about anything,’ that is not a sign of a wise child but of a troubled and depressed one. Similarly, adults who withdraw from the world soon get bored. Even lovers, if they retreat to their private love nest for too long, lose interest in each other. We do not thrive in satiety and rest. Human existence means ‘transcendence’, or going beyond, not ‘immanence’, or reposing passively inside oneself. It means constant action until the day one runs out of things to do — a day that is unlikely to come as long as you have breath. For Beauvoir and Sartre, this was the big lesson of the war years: the art of life lies in getting things done. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 516 (#expands, via linked claim)

We have shown that freedom is actually one with the being of the For-itself; human reality is free to the exact extent that it has to be its own nothingness. It has to be this nothingness, as we have seen, in multiple dimensions: first, by temporalizing itself—i.e., by being always at a distance from itself, which means that it can never let itself be determined by its past to perform this or that particular act; second, by rising up as consciousness of something and (of) itself—i.e., by being presence to itself and not simply self, which implies that nothing exists in consciousness which is not consciousness of existing and that consequently nothing external to consciousness can motivate it; and finally, by being transcendence—i.e., not something which would first be in order subsequently to put itself into relation with this or that end, but on the contrary, a being which is originally a project—i.e., which is defined by its end. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1099 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Human existence means transcendence and constant action, not passive repose — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 516; Choice and consciousness are identical rather than separate acts — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1116; Freedom is identical with the for-itself’s nothingness expressed as temporality, self-presence, and transcendence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1099 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Choice and consciousness are identical rather than separate acts #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1116
• Human existence means transcendence and constant action, not passive repose #expands (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 516
• Freedom is identical with the for-itself’s nothingness expressed as temporality, self-presence, and transcendence #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1099
• Action and passion are inseparable reciprocal effects #responds-to (0.75) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 438
• Life sustains itself only by surpassing itself, and both gametes share equal roles #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 87
• Life both requires and overflows every determinate form #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 828