The meaning of one’s place depends entirely on the project one chooses.

Evidence

Now the meaning of the past is strictly dependent on my present project. This certainly does not mean that I can make the meaning of my previous acts vary in any way I please; quite the contrary, it means that the fundamental project which I am decides absolutely the meaning which the past which I have to be can have for me and for others. I alone in fact can decide at each moment the bearing of the past. I do not decide it by debating it, by deliberating over it, and in each instance evaluating the importance of this or that prior event; but by projecting myself toward my ends, I preserve the past with me, and by action I decide its meaning. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1184 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Nevertheless it should be noted that this permanence of the past, of the environment, and of character are not given qualities; they are revealed on things only in correlation with the continuity of my project. For example, when after a war, after a long exile one finds a particular mountain landscape unchanged, it would be in vain to hope to found upon the inertia and apparent permanence of these stones the hope for a renascence of the past. This landscape reveals its permanence only across a persevering project. These mountains have a meaning inside my situation; in one way or another they shape my belonging to a nation which is at peace, her own mistress, one who holds a certain rank in the international hierarchy. Let me find them again after a defeat and during the occupation of a part of the national territory, and they can not offer me the same countenance. This is because I myself have other projects, because I am engaged differently in the world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1284 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The fundamental project is the for-itself’s choice of its own being-in-the-world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1107; My total project and the world as totality are strictly correlative notions. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1114; Individual passions are surface expressions of one total fundamental project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1147 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The past’s force and meaning depend entirely on present projects #exemplifies (0.95)
• One’s fundamental project determines the meaning of one’s past #corroborates (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1184
• The permanence of things is constituted by one’s own ongoing project. #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1284
• Having a past requires actively choosing it through the future-project. #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1182
• The for-itself constitutes itself by choosing and projecting concrete possibles #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1509