The permanence of things is constituted by one’s own ongoing project.

Evidence

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

Categorization

• XREF: The mountains-after-defeat example shows how national identity enters the situation — connects with Sartre’s war-time writing and Beauvoir’s situated freedom. — connects to: The same fatigue is lived as loving appropriation within a vaster project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1104; 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; Individual acts express and are unchangeable apart from one’s original project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1119 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• The for-itself constitutes itself by choosing and projecting concrete possibles #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1509
• The possible becomes real only through a person’s project, not as pre-existing logical possibility #corroborates (0.88)
• The for-itself’s project is a concrete individual choice, not an abstract universal #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1384
• One’s fundamental project determines the meaning of one’s past #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1184
• The past’s force and meaning depend entirely on present projects #expands (0.82)
• The term ‘project’ links freedom and contingency in historical determination. #expands (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 104