What Is an Image

Human nature, which can do nothing but constantly slip away from itself.
This is the nature of the for-itself (pour soi) that Sartre defines, and the true meaning of freedom when we say humans are free.
Unlike the in-itself (en soi) being, which exists as itself, the for-itself being always exists 'toward' something. As a for-itself being, the human being also exists 'toward' itself even in its relation with itself. This means that we exist as something we are not, in an instability of not coinciding with ourselves. The point we, who explore the image, must note is that the seed of this for-itself nature, which is precisely formulated in 'Being and Nothingness,' is being discovered in the imagination.
The fundamental characteristic of conscious being is found in imagination. A consciousness that does not imagine is an unthinkable, contradictory concept. As a power of nullification that seeks to refuse and overturn the real, imagination is identical with freedom, the capacity for transcendence that can escape from the real. Freedom is the same as consciousness's ability to put distance between itself and the real.110


The human being who exists as a for-itself can never, no matter how much they wish, exist as an in-itself.


Of course, since imagination is always an activity that nullifies the real from a particular perspective, it presupposes the real as the 'situation' for it to operate in. Imagination is not the free play of a dove crossing the sky without any constraints. Like the air the dove's wings push against, imagination is possible only on top of the real.
And yet, imagination is an act that transcends the world.
The human being who exists as a for-itself can never, no matter how much they wish, exist as an in-itself.111

For the cafe employee to 'play' the role of an employee means that he is trying to congeal himself into the fixed identity of a cafe employee, and the very fact that he tries to do so reveals that he does not possess the identity of a cafe employee. There is here a fundamental separation that can never be resolved by effort.
I am separated from this subject just as the object is separated from the subject. I am separated 'by nothingness.' Yet this nothingness isolates me from the subject. I cannot be the subject. I have no choice but to 'play at being' that subject. In other words, I have no choice but to imagine that I am that subject. ('Being and Nothingness,' 132)
From this sentence we can grasp what meaning the imaginarization of the subject has, and why the deepest nature of conscious being is imagination. The human being, a conscious being, is fundamentally an imagining being. We are always at a distance from ourselves, and we have no choice but to exist as what we are 'not.' Disharmony with oneself, the endless slipping away from oneself, in a word 'transcendence,' most accurately reveals the mode of being of conscious existence. This is precisely the human nature that can never be reified. The transcendent nature of for-itself consciousness can be summarized in the following expression. "Consciousness is not what it is." ('Being and Nothingness,' 136)
In this way, we are merely an imaginary cafe employee, or an imaginary office worker, an imaginary student. Our identity can never be fixed. According to the negative nature of consciousness, every ground we set foot on shakes.
The moment we try to put weight on it, the floor caves in feebly.

The fact that we ourselves do not possess any essence whatsoever - this is the true meaning of freedom, and the sense of this freedom is anxiety. "Anxiety is the reflexive grasp of freedom by freedom itself." ('Being and Nothingness,' 99) Anxiety is the vertigo we feel when we become aware that there is no firm foundation underfoot to lend our weight to and rely on. And imagination is the very gesture of trying to escape this anxiety. If the imaginary attitude has an evasive character, it is because within the activity of the imagining consciousness there remains the desire to become an in-itself - even though it can never be achieved.138