The inescapable residue of failure is the very condition of living freedom

Evidence

In construction, as in rejection, it is a matter of reconquering freedom on the contingent facticity of existence, that is, of taking the given, which, at the start, is there without any reason, as something willed by man. A conquest of this kind is never finished; the contingency remains, and, so that he may assert his will, man is even obliged to stir up in the world the outrage he does not want. But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 145

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines freedom as perpetual reconquest of the given, with failure as constitutive rather than accidental — key to distinguishing the free person from the serious man and nihilist.
• XREF: connects to: Absolute freedom makes one’s every choice perpetually fragile and invertible; The unified self is a fragile construction sustained against the lure of dissolution. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 48; Powerless hope is the sole precondition for continuing to live — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 149 (+2 more)