One’s place traces a chain of references back to the pure contingency of birth

Evidence

Thus in a sense the For-itself appears as being born from the world, for the In-itself from which it is born is in the midst of the world, as a copresent past among co-present pasts; into the world and in terms of the world a For-itself arises which did not exist before and which has been born. But in another sense it is the For-itself which causes the existence of a before in general and the existence in this before of co-presents united in the unity of one past world and such that one can designate one or the other among them as this object. There is not first one universal time where a For-itself suddenly appears not yet having a Past. Rather it is in terms of birth as the original and a priori law of being for the For-itself that there is revealed a world with a universal time in which we can designate a moment when the For-itself was not yet and a moment when it appeared, beings from which the For-itself was not born and a being from which it was born. Birth is the upsurge of the absolute relation of Pastness as the ekstatic being of the For-itself in the In-itself. Through birth a Past appears in the world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 479 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The For-itself retroactively constitutes the past from which it appears born — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 479; The body as facticity is grounded in the nihilation of the in-itself at birth.; The meaning of one’s place depends entirely on the project one chooses.

Broader Connections

• The For-itself retroactively constitutes the past from which it appears born #expands (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 479
• The body as facticity is grounded in the nihilation of the in-itself at birth. #corroborates (0.78)
• The meaning of one’s place depends entirely on the project one chooses. #qualifies (0.72)