been reading Sartre

should i be reading this right now? probably. helps with the ups and downs.
some things have stuck out to me and seem to be some ideas i can relate to right now...


desire involves recognition of the lack of something, as does intentional action, for you can try to bring about a change in the world only if you believe that what you intend is not already the case.
the mental power of negation is, the, the same thing as freedom - both freedom of mind (to imagine possibilities) and freedom of action (to try to actualize them).
to be a conscious being is to be continually faced with choices about what to believe and what to do.

to be conscious is to be free.


sartre maintains that if i am sad, it is only because i choose to make myself sad.
emotions are not just moods that "come over us" but ways in which we apprehend the world.
so we ARE responsible for our emotions; they are ways in which we choose to react to the world.

sartre uses the word "anguish" to describe the consciousness of one's own freedom.
anguish is not fear of an external object but the awareness of the ultimate unpredictability of one's own behavior.

anguish, the consciousness of our freedom, is painful, and we typically try to avoid it.

"bad faith" or "self-deception" is the attempt to escape anguish by thinking that one's attitudes and actions are determined by one's situation, one's character, one's relationship to others, or one's social role - by anything other than one's own choices.

"good faith" or "sincerity" creates a problem as well. for as soon as one describes oneself in some way "I AM ....", in that very act a distinction is involved between the self doing the describing and the self described.


so, the ideal of complete sincerity seems doomed to failure, for we can never be mere objects to be observed and described: the attempt to achieve sincerity thus becomes another form of bad faith.

he also says that the relationship between any two consciouse beings is necessarily one of coflict in that each must want to "possess" the other, to make the other into a mere object.

genuine respect for the freedom of others, nonpossessive love,
is an impossible ideal.

this seems to be a little disheartening and contradictory.
cannot some choose NOT to aspire to become an object?
if "good faith" is a kind of "bad faith", how is any kind of authenticity possible?

interesting ideas and something to ponder.
can't say, though, that i have not felt or thought these things before.
certain relationships have induced such thought...


so, i am uplifting myself here in the northeast. for sure...