The Outsider

1. The Outsider's core experience is alienation from a world perceived as unreal and valueless.

He sees too deep and too much.

A sense of strangeness. The Outsider feels fundamentally disconnected from ordinary society, perceiving the world of the "bourgeois" as artificial, meaningless, or even grotesque. Figures like Barbusse's unnamed hero or Sartre's Roquentin experience a profound "nausea" or unreality, where everyday objects and social interactions lose their conventional meaning and appear absurd or alienating. This isn't just social maladjustment; it's a deeper existential awareness.

World without values. This perception leads to a "world without values," where conventional goals, beliefs, and moral standards seem arbitrary or hypocritical. Camus's Meursault embodies this indifference, unable to feign grief at his mother's funeral or understand societal expectations, ultimately facing condemnation not just for murder but for his perceived lack of feeling. H.G. Wells, in his later work, reached a similar nihilistic conclusion, feeling that the "pattern of things to come faded away."

Beyond the surface. The Outsider's alienation stems from seeing beyond the comfortable, insulated surface of life that most people accept as reality. They glimpse a chaotic, irrational core beneath the veneer of order, which makes it impossible for them to fully participate in or accept the conventional human world. This heightened perception, while isolating, is presented not as a disease but as a potentially truer, albeit terrifying, insight.

2. The Outsider struggles with a divided self, seeking self-expression and control.

He is not himself.

Internal conflict. The Outsider often feels fragmented, split between different aspects of their nature – the conventional self and a deeper, often darker or more intense, inner being. Hesse's Steppenwolf personifies this as a division between the "civilized man" and the "wolf-man," constantly at war. This internal division fuels a desperate need for unity and self-knowledge.

Blocked expression. This self-division manifests as a struggle for self-expression. T.E. Lawrence, despite immense capabilities, felt a profound inability to connect his inner vision with outward action, describing himself as a "pipe through which life flowed" but never truly alive in what he did. Van Gogh and Nijinsky, though expressing themselves powerfully through art and dance, also faced internal conflicts that ultimately contributed to their tragic ends.

Attempt to gain control. The Outsider attempts to gain control over this fragmented self, often through various forms of discipline – intellectual, emotional, or physical. However, these attempts frequently fail because the Outsider lacks a clear understanding of their true self or a purpose strong enough to unify their conflicting impulses. The struggle highlights the difficulty of achieving wholeness when one's core identity feels elusive or undesirable.

3. Confronting suffering forces the Outsider to choose between affirming or denying life.

That shape am I, I felt, potentially.

The horror of existence. The Outsider is acutely sensitive to suffering, both personal and universal. Experiences of intense pain, loss, or the sheer brutality of life can trigger a "vastation," a terrifying realization of vulnerability and the precariousness of existence. William James's panic fear or Tolstoy's "Memoirs of a Madman" illustrate this sudden confrontation with the potential for utter degradation or meaninglessness.

Ultimate No. This encounter with suffering often leads to a profound pessimism, an "Ultimate No" that questions the value of life itself. Writers like Beddoes or the later Eliot express this sense of futility and the omnipresence of death and decay. Kafka's "Fasting Showman" symbolizes this lack of appetite for life, leading to passive self-destruction.

The possibility of Yes. Yet, this confrontation also presents the possibility of an "Ultimate Yes." Nietzsche's philosophy, born from immense suffering, is a call to affirm life "in spite of" its horrors, to embrace the "Will to Power" as a fundamental drive towards more life. Dostoevsky's Kirilov, facing execution, finds a profound affirmation in the simple reality of a leaf, realizing that "Everything's good" when seen without delusion. This choice between absolute denial and absolute affirmation is central to the Outsider's journey.

4. The Outsider's potential lies in developing a 'visionary faculty' for deeper reality.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

Beyond ordinary sight. The Outsider's dissatisfaction with conventional reality hints at a potential for perceiving a deeper, more intense reality. This isn't about seeing ghosts, but about a heightened sensory and emotional awareness that reveals the world as vibrant, meaningful, and even "infinite." Van Gogh's canvases, with their blazing colours and dynamic forms, are seen as attempts to capture this visionary perception.

Cleansing perception. This ability to see beyond the mundane is termed the "visionary faculty." Blake argued that this faculty is man's natural state, lost due to focusing on "single vision and Newton's sleep" – a narrow, literal, and materialistic way of seeing. He believed this faculty could be restored through a discipline aimed at "cleansing the doors of perception," allowing one to see "a world in a grain of sand."

Experiential reality. Mystics like Traherne and Ramakrishna describe achieving this state of heightened consciousness, where the world appears paradisiacal and full of divine presence. Ramakrishna's spontaneous trances, triggered by simple beauty, illustrate a natural susceptibility to this state, which he cultivated through spiritual discipline. This visionary reality is subjective and experiential, contrasting sharply with the Outsider's initial perception of unreality.

5. The path to overcoming alienation involves definitive action and breaking mechanical habits.

man’s whole business is to prove that he is a man and not a cog-wheel…

Revolt against mechanism. The Outsider's sense of futility is often tied to the feeling of being a mere cog in a mechanical universe, lacking genuine free will or purpose. Dostoevsky's Underground Man rails against the idea that human actions can be reduced to mathematical formulas, asserting the need to prove one's individuality and freedom, even through irrational acts.

The definitive act. Overcoming this mechanicalness requires a "definitive act," an action so significant or willed that it breaks the pattern of passive existence and gives life a new, settled purpose. Raskolnikov's murder, though ultimately failing to provide the intended liberation, was an attempt at such an act. Yeats's anecdote of the young man contemplating throwing his boots illustrates the desire for an act that creates "forms of intensity."

Breaking the sleep. Gurdjieff's philosophy directly addresses this, claiming that most people live in a state of "sleep," acting mechanically without true consciousness or free will. His system aims to "awaken" individuals by making them aware of their mechanical habits and negative emotions. The first step is the terrifying realization of one's own "nothingness" and "absolute mechanicalness," which provides the necessary shock to begin the process of self-remembering and conscious action.

6. For the Outsider, religious truth is subjective, experiential, and critiques conventional 'sleep'.

Truth is subjectivity.

Beyond dogma. The Outsider often rejects conventional religion, not necessarily out of atheism, but because its dogmas and rituals seem like empty forms or "opiums of the people" that fail to address the core problems of unreality and suffering. Kierkegaard's critique of Hegelian philosophy and the Danish Church exemplifies this, insisting that true religious truth is intensely personal and subjective, not an abstract system.

Experiential knowledge. For the Outsider, religious truth must be experiential, something "known" subjectively rather than merely believed. Blake's insistence that "the true method of knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty that experiences" aligns with this. The "visions" and moments of intense consciousness described by mystics are seen as subjective validations of religious concepts, accessible through personal effort and discipline.

Critique of the 'once-born'. This subjective, experiential approach leads to a critique of the "once-born" or "healthy-minded" individual who accepts life at face value without questioning its deeper reality or their own mechanical nature. Figures like Newman or Dostoevsky's Father Zossima, while rooted in Christian tradition, share the Outsider's perception of a fundamental human "calamity" or "delusion" that requires a radical awakening, contrasting with the complacency of those who remain "asleep."

7. The ultimate aim is higher consciousness and 'more abundant life'.

to have life more abundantly

More being. The underlying drive of the Outsider, even in their despair, is a yearning for "more abundant life," a state of heightened consciousness and vitality beyond the limitations of ordinary existence. This isn't just about physical survival but about an increase in being, a fuller realization of potential. Nietzsche's concept of the Superman, stripped of later misinterpretations, represents this ideal of a self-surmounting individual who achieves a higher state of life.

Evolution of consciousness. This aim is framed as an evolution of consciousness. Gurdjieff describes four states, culminating in "objective consciousness," a state of full awareness and freedom from mechanicalness. Blake's "fourfold vision" and the mystic's "God-consciousness" point to similar levels of expanded perception and being, where the world is seen as infinite and holy.

Overcoming limitations. Achieving this state requires overcoming the limitations of the fragmented self and the mechanical habits of the "sleeping" state. It involves integrating the different aspects of the being – intellect, emotion, body, and instinct – and directing their combined energy towards conscious evolution. The journey is difficult, often marked by struggle and potential failure, but the possibility of attaining this higher form of life remains the ultimate, albeit often dimly perceived, goal of the Outsider.

Last updated: May 16, 2025