JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Temporality173Future. But conversely such a being can be for itself only in the perspective of a Notyet,for it apprehends itself as a nothingness—that is, as a being whose complementof being is at a distance from itself. At a distance means beyond being. Thus everythingwhich the For-itself is beyond being is the Future.What is the meaning of this “beyond?” In order to understand it we must note thatthe Future has one essential characteristic of the For-itself: it is presence (future) tobeing. And it is Presence of this particular For-itself, of the For-itself for which it is thefuture. When I say, “I shall be happy,” it is this present For-itself which will behappy; it is the actual Erlebnis with all which it was and which it drags behind it. Itwill be happy as presence to being; that is, as future Presence of the For-itself to a cofuturebeing. So that what has been given me as the meaning of the present For-itselfis ordinarily the co-future being in so far as it will be revealed to the future For-itselfas that to which this For-itself will be present. For the For-itself is the theticconsciousness of the world in the form of presence and non-thetic self-consciousness.Thus what is ordinarily revealed to consciousness is the future world withoutconsciousness’ being aware that it is the world in so far as it will appear to aconsciousness, the world in so far as it is posited as future by the presence of a Foritselfto come. This world has meaning as future only in so far as I am present to it asanother who I will be, in another position, physical, emotional, social, etc. Yet it is thiswhich is at the end of my present For-itself and beyond being-in-itself, and this is thereason why we have a tendency first to present the future as a state of the world andto make it appear subsequently on the ground of the world. If I write, I am consciousof the words as written and as about to be written. The words alone seem to be thefuture which awaits me. But the very fact that they appear as to be written implies thatwriting, as a non-thetic self-consciousness, is the possibility which I am. Thus theFuture as the future presence of a For-itself to a being drags being-in-itself along withit into the future. This being to which the For-itself will be present is the meaning ofthe in-itself co-present with the present For-itself, as the future is the meaning of theFor-itself. The Future is presence to a co-future being because the For-itself can existonly outside itself at the side of being and because the future is a future For-itself. Butthus through the Future a particular future arrives in the World; that is, the For-itselfis its meaning as Presence to being which is beyond being. Through the For-itself, aBeyond of being is revealed next to which the For-itself has to be what it is. As thesaying goes, “I must become what I was;” but I must become what I was-in a worldthat has become and in a world that has become from the standpoint of what it is. Thismeans that I give to the world its own possibilities in terms of the state which I