One is never identical with any of one’s own attitudes or actions

Evidence

Furthermore we are dealing with more than mere social positions; I am never any one of my attitudes, any one of my actions. The good speaker is the one who plays at speaking, because he can not be speaking. The attentive pupil who wishes to be attentive, his eyes riveted on the teacher, his ears open wide, so exhausts himself in playing the attentive role that he ends up by no longer hearing anything. Perpetually absent to my body, to my acts, I am despite myself that “divine absence” of which Valéry speaks. I can not say either that I am here or that I am not here, in the sense that we say “that box of matches is on the table;” this would be to confuse my “being-in-the-world” with a “being-in the midst of the world.” Nor that I am standing, nor that I am seated; this would be to confuse my body with the idiosyncratic totality of which it is only one of the structures. On all sides I escape being and yet—I am. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 300

Categorization

• DEFINE: Extends the for-itself’s non-self-coincidence beyond social roles to all attitudes, actions, and the body itself.
• XREF: The attentive pupil’s self-defeating effort resonates with the striving for self-coincidence that bad faith pursues; connects directly to Heidegger’s Geworfenheit/Entwurf structure and to Beauvoir. — connects to: One never gains concrete intuition of one’s own character as judged by the Other; Masochism fails on principle because one can never apprehend one’s own objectivity — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 963; A for-itself can never constitute itself as evil on its own — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 755 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Masochism fails on principle because one can never apprehend one’s own objectivity #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 963
• What one creates or owns remains always oneself, never genuinely other. #contradicts (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1372
• A for-itself can never constitute itself as evil on its own #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 755
• One never gains concrete intuition of one’s own character as judged by the Other #expands (0.78)