There is always a natural tendency to want to fit in, until you realize how much needs to be compromised in the process. For many, the compromise is clouded by a simple indoctrination. They have not done the work to venture outside of the system. For others, they have found an alternative system and made it an idol. They have just replaced one belief system for another, but are yet once again congealing around some fixation. But what I'm talking about is those who are doing the hard work of seeking outside any comfort zone and occasionally hitting a note that katapults the individual to a sense of aliveness. The Outsider is living his truth, but perhaps not “the” Truth since he would deny any such objectivity. I assume this is some of the ideas Colin Wilson was trying to convey in The Outsider. Of course, many examples he gives in the book (e.g. Nietzsche, Nijinkski, van Gogh) did not have a happy ending. There are no guarantees in being an existential risk taker and living outside the conventual values of the day, especially if one is consumed with an unbridled and unbalanced self-expression.
Wilson sums up the Outsider in saying,
The Outsider’s problem amounts to a way of seeing the world that can be termed ‘pessimistic’. I have tried to argue that this pessimism is true and valid. It therefore discounts the humanistic ideals of ‘man rising on stepping stones of dead selves to higher things, etc.’, and criticizes philosophy by saying that there is no point in the philosopher’s trying to get to know the world if he doesn’t know himself. It says flatly that the ideal ‘objective philosophy’ will not be constructed by mere thinkers, but by men who combine the thinker, the poet and the man of action. The first question of philosophy is not ‘What is the Universe all about?’ but ‘What should we do with our lives?’; i.e. its aim is not a System that shall be intellectually consistent, but the salvation of the individual. Now, I assert that this formula is a religious formula, whether we find it in St. Augustine or Bernard Shaw, and an important part of my aim in this book has been to try to point this out.
In ‘What message did you preach in Palestine? That all men must strive for more abundant life, that they must Will unceasingly to realize that “The Kingdom of God is within them”, that they should not be content to be men, but should strive to be “Sons of God”? You raised the standard of conduct of the Old Testament; you added to the Ten Commandments. Then you left us to build a Church on your precepts. What you didn’t seem to realise is that all men are not prophets and moral geniuses. It is not the Church’s business to save only those few who are strong-willed enough to save themselves. We are concerned about raising the general standard of all the race, and we can’t do this by telling every man that he had better be his own Church—as you did. That is tantamount to telling every manthat he must be an Outsider—which God forbid! The Outsider’s problems are insoluble, and we, the elect, know this. You raised the standard too high, and we have had to haul it down again. We the elect, are unhappy—because we know just how terribly difficult it is to “achieve salvation”. But we have always kept this a secret from the people—who are not much better than dogs and cats, after all. Now you come back, proposing to give the show away! Do you suppose I can allow that? I am afraid I shall have to have you quietly done away with and it is entirely your own fault. Prophets are all very well when they are dead, but while they are alive there is nothing for it but to burn or crucify them…’
Wilson adds,
As the Grand Inquisitor ends his indictment, Christ leans forward and kisses him on his pale lips. This is his reply: Your reasoning is powerful but my love is stronger. But Ivan has stated the case against religion as it has never been stated, before or since. Christ’s love is no answer to that. ... As far as it goes, Ivan’s analysis of the world is completely right. Misery will never end: that is true; but that does not negate the saint’s vision, because he sees that life can never end either. They are not even two eternal warring principles; they are on a completely different level.
While Ivan could not surrender to Christ, he also fails to see there is an Authority that we are never Outside of, and as such, must submit to a degree of self-mastery to become obedient to it. The Outsider often lacks the spontaneous enchantment to live from that completely different level, and can be driven by an enduring angst that is never satisfying or solvable. There is an authenticity and integrity in living out one's disposition, but as long as that view is partial, all peak experiences of aliveness will be short lived and never add up to much in the end.
Life echoes in Eternity, and so what we do here matters. But without an eternal context, how such a mortal life will be lived will be limited with too much self-concern no matter how creatively engaged. The more I consider the goal of mortal life being limited to itself, the more absurd it seems to me. I may feel like an Outsider, but that does not make it true.