The Outsider (Wilson, 1956, 1967)

The Outsider (Wilson, 1956, 1967)

Colin Wilson

The seminal work on alienation, creativity, and the modern mindset. First published 30 years ago, it illuminated the struggle of those who seek not only the transformation of the Self, but of society as a whole.

JLJ-Colin Wilson is either an idiot or a genius, and possibly both. A well-read self-educated man (Wilson was 24 when he wrote The Outsider) tells compelling stories of outsiders and their curious experiences living on the edge of society. We peer, like blue-collar talk show host Jerry Springer, into the lives of the ignorant and self-isolated, those who cannot see the traps they set and spring for themselves. Scholarly, oddly interesting, ultimately, empty rhetoric. Wilson describes his rise to fame as positive reviews of The Outsider hit the press:

"Before that day was out, I had no doubt that I was famous, whatever that meant. I had no telephone - naturally - but our neighbours in the basement had one, and it began to ring at about nine o'clock that morning... Within a couple of hours I had agreed to be interviewed by half a dozen newspapers, and to appear on radio and television..."

p.71 these men did not understand themselves... The Outsider's first business is self-knowledge.

p.73 the Outsider's business is to find a course of action in which he is most himself, that is, in which he achieves the maximum self-expression.

p.76 [T. E. Lawrence] I had one craving all my life - for the power of self-expression in some imaginative form

p.105-106 As far as the Outsider is concerned, it is more important to have a powerful intellect than a highly developed capacity to 'feel'... the Outsider's chief desire is to cease to be an Outsider... His problem is therefore how to go forward... There is a way forward and a way back. Either way resolves the Outsider's problems.

p.153 Who am I? - This is the Outsider's final problem.

p.155 In Chapters II and III we spoke of Outsiders who awake to the fact that they were not what they had always supposed themselves to be when they felt something that opened up new possibilities

p.188 Normally man's mind is composed only of a consciousness of his immediate needs, which is to say that this consciousness at any moment can be defined as his awareness of his own power to satisfy those needs.

p.290 I kept a voluminous journal, which was several million words long by the time I was twenty-four.

p.292 I don't much like people anyway, so the endless succession of parties and receptions, and the hordes of new acquaintances, left me with a strong feeling of "people poisoning." [great. Become a writer, write books for people to read who you hate.]

p.293 The basic problem of "The Outsider" is his instinctive rejection of the everyday world, a feeling that it is somehow boring and unsatisfying... All major poets and philosophers have had this feeling as their starting point... that living itself is a trivial and repetitive task

p.297 Here it is again, the outsider problem... man wishes to become a creature of the mind, of the imagination - but a few hours in this inner land, and they have to get back to the physical world, with its stupid, repetitive problems. The world of the mind exhausts them.

p.298 The great writer or thinker isn't writing primarily for other people; he is exploring the world of his own being... And yet he is not yet capable of remaining in that mental universe for more than an hour or so. After that, he becomes tired, bored, depressed; he has to get back to the physical world and his ordinary little concerns.

p.301 I can create in myself most of the effects of mescalin by purely mental disciplines. [this explains your writing, Colin...]

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