Radical Conversion

Sartre described the revision of the fundamental project as a kind of radical conversion — a term he borrowed deliberately from religious vocabulary to convey the depth of the transformation involved. The conversion is not a gradual adjustment but a rupture: a moment in which the person sees, with sudden clarity, that the project organizing her existence is no longer viable — and that the viability was never guaranteed, because the project was always a choice, and choices can become untenable when circumstances change. The radical conversion does not happen to everyone. Many people, faced with the disruption of their fundamental project, choose instead to defend it — to double down, to insist more vehemently on the value of what the world is devaluing. This defense is understandable. The fundamental project is the most intimate thing a person possesses — more intimate than any skill or relationship, because it is the choice that makes all other choices coherent. To revise it is to revise oneself