Can anyone explain this theory by Jean-Paul Sartre to me?

freedom is the nothingness we experience when we are conscious of what we are not





WTF?|||Its pretty simple actually. "What we are not" always makes us depressed in dejected on a certain level. So you are sitting in a car in a parking lot and it wont start because its a 1987 Oldsmobile and some dude gets into his Maserati which is parked right next to you and zooms off you become "Consious" of what you dont have. But, you are "free" to go out an and do whatever it takes to get a Maserati if you want. Get it.|||by seeing what others are, we can know what we are not and are. therefore knowing the various thinks we could be, we realize that we had the freedom to choose.





thats what i understand from it|||OK. It does sound obtuse but let's work on it together.





First of all think about who you are not. You are not President Bush, of Obama, or Hillary, or Mugabe, or the drug addict that lives down the block from you, you are not a car or a tree, or countless other people or things. Right? Right.





Can you relate to them? Probably not. It is really difficult to put yourself in their shoes, tires or roots, partially because our ability to empathize is limited somewhat and because a lot of what we see is a facade that each of them has created to present themselves to the world. That is the nothingness. The part that if we are honest we have to admit we really know nothing about.





Well how does that relate to freedom? Does it mean that we are free to not be them? That we are free to emulate them? That we are trapped inside of being ourselves and have no freedom to be someone else? Or something else?





Just what does that freedom mean to you? That is the freedom that Sartre is talking about. You have to make that choice of what it means to you. Only YOU can make that choice. That is your freedom, to be you in all the different ways you can be you. And that freedom takes you on a path called your life.|||First you have to understand and accept that we are everything.





And "everything" means everything that is real and imaginable that we can perceive with the faculties we have as beings of this existence. That includes emotion and thought.





That means that our consciousness includes all of the universe and everything imaginable that is beyond the physical universe.





So, because we are part of the universe, we are the universe or existence (whichever word you prefer to use). Of this we are conscious. We are conscious that we are part of existence. And consciousness ties us to this universe or existence. Consciousness is what keeps us in this existence. That we know.





So the essential aspect of this existence is that we are conscious of this existence. If you are not conscious of this existence, then what are you conscious of? Remember existence includes imagination and feelings. Anything that happens in this existence whether physical or not is part of existence.





So if consciousness is essential for knowing that we exist and are part of this existence, if it is the very building block of existence, then it is what ties us to existence.





For example: A house is made of bricks. It is dependent on bricks to exist. The bricks are consciousness. Without bricks there is no house. Without consciousness there is no existence.





So, we are prisoners of consciousness because existence requires consciousness for it to be and we are existence.





We are made of consciousness.





We are prisoners of consciousness.





If there is no consciousness, we are free from existence.





Can you imagine having absolutely no consciousness?





I can't. It is beyond imagination because imagination is part of consciousness.





So Jean-Paul Sartre's comment is a bit comical because no one can be conscious of what we are not. That would be like being dead. But if you believe in soul then death is not the end of existence. That's why it's funny.





To be really non existent is beyond consciousness. That is ultimate freedom. Even the term nothingness is something.


So true freedom is beyond nothingness. It's beyond consciousness.