Sartre declared, in a lecture given in Paris on 29 October 1945 (later published under the title "L'existentialisme est un humanisme"):What is meant ... by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives of him, is undefinable, it is only because he is nothing. Only afterwards will he be something, and he will have made what he will be.If things—and also people—are contingent, if they "just are," then we are free and we create ourselves solely through our decisions and choices.