Chapter 2: No Instruction Manual

"I Am Just Not a Creative Person"

Aiyana is twenty-eight and works as a laboratory technician, testing water samples for a regional water company. On a Saturday afternoon, she is looking after her seven-year-old niece, who wants to paint. They spread newspaper on the kitchen table and set out brushes and small pots of colour. Her niece paints happily, a bright yellow sun, a purple horse, a house with a red door.

"Paint with me, Auntie," says the girl. Aiyana laughs and shakes her head. "Oh, I cannot paint. I am just not a creative person. I am a science person." Her niece looks at her with complete seriousness. "How do you know?" she asks. "Have you tried?"

Aiyana opens her mouth to answer and finds that she does not have one. She has not painted since she was about ten. At school, a teacher once said her drawing was messy, and around the same time, she discovered she was good at mathematics. From then on, she was "the science one" in her family, and her sister was "the artistic one". She has believed this about herself for eighteen years. She has never questioned it.

She picks up a brush. Her first attempt at a tree is clumsy, and part of her wants to put the brush down and say, "See? I told you." But her niece says, "That is a good tree," and Aiyana, half laughing, keeps going. An hour later, she has painted a lopsided garden that she rather likes. That evening, she thinks about the phrase "I am just not a creative person". Where did it come from? Is it true? Or is it simply something she decided long ago, and then kept deciding, by never picking up a brush?

The Paper Knife

In October 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jean-Paul Sartre gave a public lecture that became one of the most famous talks in the history of philosophy. It was published the following year under a title that can be translated as Existentialism Is a Humanism. In it, Sartre tried to explain, for a general audience, what existentialism meant. At the centre of his explanation was a simple example.

Think, Sartre said, of a manufactured object, such as a paper knife, a kind of blunt knife used for opening letters and cutting the pages of books. Before the paper knife exists, the person who makes it already has an idea of it in mind: what it is for, what shape it should have, how it should be made. The idea comes first, and then the object is made to match the idea. In the language of philosophy, the knife's essence, what it is and what it is for, comes before its existence. A paper knife is made in order to be a paper knife. It has no say in the matter.

Many traditional ways of thinking, Sartre continued, imagine human beings in a similar way. If a creator designed human beings with a particular nature and purpose in mind, then that nature and purpose would come first, and each person would be made to fit them. Even many thinkers who did not believe in a creator still assumed that there was a fixed "human nature", a set of qualities and purposes that every human being shares, which defines what we are before we do anything.

Sartre's claim was that, for human beings, it is the other way round. We are not like paper knives. There is no design that comes before us and tells us what we are for. We exist first. We find ourselves in the world, and only afterwards, through what we do, do we define what we are. This is what Sartre meant by his famous phrase, which is often summed up as the idea that existence comes before essence.

The lecture was given in a crowded hall, and it was a public event as much as a philosophical one. Many people in the audience were curious about the new word "existentialism", which had become fashionable and was often used loosely. Sartre wanted to defend his ideas against the charge that they were gloomy and led to despair. His argument was that, on the contrary, a philosophy that says we make ourselves is a philosophy of action and responsibility. Later in life, Sartre expressed some regret about parts of the lecture, which he felt had simplified his thought. But it remains the clearest short introduction to his central ideas.

Existence Comes Before Essence

What does this mean in ordinary terms? It means that you were not born as a finished product. You were not born "a creative person" or "not a creative person", "a leader" or "a follower", "a brave person" or "a coward". You were born with a body, in a family, in a place and time, with certain abilities and tendencies. But who you become is not fixed in advance. It is shaped by what you do.

In the lecture, Sartre put this point strongly. As he saw it, a person has no nature apart from the life that the person shapes. What we are is built up, piece by piece, out of what we do. A person is not a hidden essence waiting to be discovered, but a life that is being lived and shaped, choice by choice.

This idea has a surprising consequence. If we are what we do, then our labels for ourselves are not descriptions of a fixed nature. They are summaries of what we have done so far. When Aiyana says "I am not a creative person", what is actually true is "I have not done creative things for a long time". That is a very different statement. The first sounds like a fact about her nature. The second describes a pattern of choices, which can be changed.

Sartre gave an example about courage. People often speak as if cowards are born cowards and heroes are born heroes. But Sartre suggested that this is a comforting story. If cowardice were simply in our nature, we would not be responsible for it. In his view, a coward becomes a coward through cowardly actions, and a hero becomes a hero through heroic ones. And neither is ever finished. The coward can choose courage tomorrow, and the hero can fail.

Some readers find this idea harsh, because it seems to leave no excuses. Others find it hopeful, because it means that no one is ever trapped by who they have been. Both reactions make sense. Sartre himself saw it as a philosophy of action and hope, not of despair: if we make ourselves, then we can always make ourselves differently.

"That Is Just How I Am"

Many of us use phrases like Aiyana's every day. "I am just not good with numbers." "I have always been shy." "I am an anxious person." "I am not the kind of person who exercises." "That is just how I am." These phrases can feel like simple descriptions. But Sartre's idea invites us to look at them more closely.

Often, such phrases began as a description of something we did, or that others told us about ourselves, at a particular time. A child who struggled with one mathematics teacher becomes "bad with numbers". A teenager who felt awkward at one party becomes "shy". Over time, the label hardens. We start to act in ways that fit it, avoiding numbers or parties, and so the label seems to be confirmed. It becomes a kind of prophecy that we fulfil ourselves.

It would be wrong to say that people have no lasting tendencies at all. Psychologists who study personality have found that people do have fairly stable traits, such as being more outgoing or more reserved, and that these are partly influenced by inborn temperament. But research has also found that personality changes over the course of life, often gradually, and that people can change some of their patterns deliberately with effort and support. A tendency is not a destiny. Someone who tends to be shy can still learn to speak in public, even if it never feels completely easy.

So Sartre's idea does not deny that we have tendencies. It denies that our tendencies decide everything. Between the tendency and the action, there is always a space in which we choose. We may choose to follow the tendency, or to act against it. Either way, the choice is ours, and so is the responsibility for it.

Noticing our "that is just how I am" phrases can be a powerful practice. Each one can be gently questioned: Is this a fact about my nature, or a summary of my past choices? Is it still true? Do I want it to remain true? Often, we discover that the phrase protects us from something, such as the discomfort of trying and failing, and that the protection has a cost.

The Facts We Did Not Choose

If existence comes before essence, does that mean we can become anything we like, simply by choosing it? No. The existentialists were not naive about this. We are free, but we are free in a particular situation.

Sartre used the word facticity for the facts of a person's situation that they did not choose: their body, their age, the family and place they were born into, the language they speak, the historical moment they live in, the past they have already lived. A person born into poverty, a person with a serious illness, a person living through a war and a person with many advantages all face very different facts. These facts are real, and they shape and limit what is possible.

What Sartre insisted on was that even within these facts, we are not simply objects. We still choose how to respond to our situation and what to make of it. Two people facing the same illness may live with it in very different ways. Two people born in the same difficult circumstances may make very different lives. The facts do not decide everything. But neither does freedom erase the facts.

This point is important, because the idea that "we make ourselves" can be twisted into a cruel judgment: if your life is hard, it must be your own fault. That is not what the existentialists meant. De Beauvoir, in particular, wrote powerfully about how social conditions, such as the way women were treated in her time, can severely limit people's freedom, and about the duty to change such conditions. We will return to her ideas later in the book. For now, it is enough to say: freedom and facticity always come together. We are never only free, and we are never only stuck.

A useful image might be that of a sailor. The sailor did not choose the sea, the wind or the boat. These are the facts. But the sailor chooses how to set the sails, which direction to steer and when to wait for better weather. Two sailors in the same storm may reach very different harbours. Our lives are a little like this: we are always sailing in conditions we did not choose, and always choosing how to sail.

Making Yourself Through Action

If we are what we do, then the way to change who we are is not mainly by thinking about ourselves, but by acting. This is one of the most practical lessons of Sartre's lecture.

Many people wait for a feeling before they act. They wait to feel confident before speaking up, to feel creative before painting, to feel motivated before exercising, to feel ready before changing their lives. Sartre's view suggests that this can be backwards. We do not become confident and then speak. We speak, and in speaking, we begin to become people who speak. Aiyana did not discover that she was secretly creative and then pick up a brush. She picked up a brush, and in doing so, she began to make herself someone who paints.

Sartre also criticized the habit of comforting ourselves with what we might have done. People sometimes say, "I could have been a great writer, if only circumstances had been different," or "I have so much potential that nobody sees." Sartre suggested, rather sharply, that in reality we are our actions, and that potential which is never acted on is, in an important sense, only a dream. This sounds harsh, but it can also be a kind of encouragement. If you want to be a writer, the way to become one is to write.

This does not mean we must achieve great things to have worth. A person is not less valuable because they have not written a novel or climbed a mountain. The point is simply that, in Sartre's view, who we are is shown and shaped in what we actually do: in how we treat people, how we work, what we create, what we stand for. These can be very ordinary actions. A life of quiet kindness is made of kind actions, one after another.

There is also great hope in this view. If we make ourselves through action, then every day offers a chance to make ourselves a little differently. We are never finished. The story is never complete until the end. Each choice is a new sentence.

It is worth adding that making ourselves is rarely a single dramatic decision. More often, it is a slow accumulation of small choices: what we do with an evening, how we respond to a difficult person, whether we keep a promise, whether we try something new. Each small choice may seem unimportant. But over months and years, they shape a person, the way many small steps shape a path across a field. This is why the existentialists' ideas apply so well to ordinary days. Ordinary days are where we make ourselves.

Four Lives Without a Manual

Viktor is fifty-two and has managed a team in a factory office for ten years. He has always told people, "I am not a people person. I am good with systems, not with feelings." His team respects his organization but finds him cold. When two team members leave, telling him that they never felt valued, Viktor is shaken. He realizes that "not a people person" has been his excuse for not trying. He starts small: asking each person how their week is going, listening to the answer and thanking people for specific things. It feels awkward, and he is not naturally warm. But over a year, his team notices the difference. Viktor has not changed his temperament, but he has changed his actions, and with them, the kind of manager he is.

Rosa is fifteen and has always been called "the clever one" in her family. She gets top marks without much effort, and she has come to believe that her worth lies in being clever. When she meets a subject that is hard for her, she panics and avoids it, because struggling would contradict the label. A teacher notices and talks with her about the simple fact that skills grow through practice, and that struggling is a normal part of learning, not a sign of failure. Rosa begins, slowly, to see herself not as someone who simply is clever, but as someone who learns, including by struggling. It frees her to take on harder challenges.

Kwasi is sixty-six and has recently retired from many years as a bus driver. His grandson offers to teach him to use a computer, and Kwasi says, "No, no. I am too old to learn these things. That is for young people." His grandson does not argue but leaves an old laptop at his house. A few weeks later, bored on a rainy afternoon, Kwasi turns it on. He makes many mistakes and phones his grandson often. Six months later, he is writing emails to old friends and reading about the history of the town where he grew up. "Too old to learn" was never a fact. It was a choice he had been making without noticing.

Aiyana, from the beginning of this chapter, buys a small set of watercolours and paints once a week, on Sunday mornings. Her paintings are not remarkable, and she does not plan to sell them. But she discovers that she loves the quiet concentration of painting, and that "not a creative person" was simply a story she had stopped questioning. She still loves her scientific work. She has simply discovered that she is not only one thing.

Viktor, Rosa, Kwasi and Aiyana each lived with a label that seemed like a fact about their nature: not a people person, the clever one, too old to learn, not creative. In each case, the label was really a summary of past choices or of other people's words. When they acted differently, the label began to change. They were making themselves, without a manual.

Practical Steps

First, collect your labels. Over a week, notice the phrases you use to describe yourself: "I am the kind of person who...", "I am just not...", "That is how I am." Write them down.

Second, translate labels into actions. For each label, rewrite it as a description of past actions. "I am not creative" becomes "I have not done creative things for a long time." "I am shy" becomes "I have often avoided speaking in groups." Notice how the rewritten version feels.

Third, separate facts from stories. Ask which parts of your situation are real facts, such as your age, your health or your responsibilities, and which parts are stories you tell about those facts. Respect the facts. Question the stories.

Fourth, act before you feel ready. Choose one small action that goes against a label you would like to change, and do it before you feel confident. Notice what happens.

Fifth, think of yourself as unfinished. When you make a mistake or fall back into an old pattern, remember that you are not a finished product. Tomorrow is another chance to act differently.

Sixth, be fair to your situation. Do not blame yourself for facts you did not choose. Ask instead: given these facts, what choices are open to me now?

A Short Exercise: Rewriting a Label

This exercise takes about twenty minutes. It helps you examine one label you hold about yourself and explore what you might make of it.

Choose one label that you often use about yourself and that you suspect might be limiting you. Write it at the top of a page in your notebook, exactly as you usually say it, for example "I am just not good at standing up for myself."

Under it, write the answers to these questions. When did I first start believing this? Who said it, or what happened? What evidence do I have that it is true? What evidence do I have that it is not entirely true, such as times when I acted differently? What does believing this protect me from? What does it cost me?

Now rewrite the label as a description of past actions, as in the practical steps. Then write a new sentence that describes a direction rather than a fixed nature, for example: "I am someone who is learning to stand up for myself." Notice how it feels to read this new sentence. It may feel strange or even false at first. That is fine.

Finally, write down one small action you could take this week that would make the new sentence a little more true. Keep it small and specific: "When my colleague interrupts me in Tuesday's meeting, I will say, 'Let me finish, please.'" Then, after the week, return to the page and write what happened.

You can repeat this exercise with other labels. Over time, you may find that the way you speak about yourself changes, and with it, the choices you make. You are not discovering a hidden essence. You are making yourself, one action at a time.

Questions People Often Ask

"Does this mean I can become anything I want?" Not exactly. Your situation, including your body, your past, your responsibilities and the society you live in, sets real limits. Sartre's point is not that anything is possible, but that within your situation, more is possible than you may think, and that your choices, not a fixed nature, shape who you become. A person may not become a professional athlete at sixty, but they can still choose to become someone who moves, plays and cares for their body.

"What about people whose lives are very constrained by poverty, illness or injustice?" The existentialists did not pretend that everyone is equally free. De Beauvoir especially wrote about how unjust conditions limit people's freedom, and argued that we have a responsibility to change those conditions, not only for ourselves but for others. Recognizing that freedom is shaped by situation is not an excuse for injustice. It is a reason to fight it.

"If there is no human nature, how can anything be right or wrong?" This is a deep question, and Sartre himself was challenged on it. His answer, in the lecture, was that when we choose for ourselves, we are also, in a sense, choosing an image of what a human being should be, and so our choices carry responsibility for everyone. De Beauvoir developed this further, arguing that true freedom includes respecting and promoting the freedom of others. We will look at these ideas in later chapters. Many philosophers continue to debate whether existentialism provides a strong enough basis for morality, and you may find your own view as you read.

Chapter Summary

In his 1945 lecture, published as Existentialism Is a Humanism, Sartre compared human beings with a paper knife. A paper knife is made to fit an idea of what it is for, so its essence comes before its existence. Human beings, he argued, are different: we exist first and define ourselves afterwards, through what we do. There is no instruction manual.

This means that our labels, such as "not creative" or "too old to learn", are not facts about a fixed nature, but summaries of past choices that can change. People do have lasting tendencies, but tendencies do not decide everything. At the same time, we are free within a situation, with facts we did not choose, and freedom never erases those facts.

We make ourselves through action, often before we feel ready, and we are never finished. In the next chapter, we look at the feeling that often comes when we realize how free we are: the dizziness that Kierkegaard called anxiety.