Colin Wilson

it lies in his position as an intellectual Outsider, a man who thinks too much to enjoy living

The greatest heights of self-expression—in poetry, music, painting—are achieved by men who are supremely alone.

‘Not to be born is the best thing, and death is better than life’

This is penetrating commentary; but then, it is only a reversal of Hesse’s statement that every man has a residue of unfulfilment at the bottom of him: boredom, unfulfilment, they amount to the same thing.
They do not know themselves. They live in prison. How can an individual hope to escape the general destiny of futility?

Nietzsche himself began as an other-worlder, agreeing with Schopenhauer that ‘Life is a sorry affair’, and that the best way to spend it is in reflecting on it. We began this study of the Outsider with a man who spent his evenings looking through a hole in his wall and ‘reflecting’ on what he saw.

I began to feel a strange uneasiness, as though I had forgotten something. And suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to remember myself.’ (Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous, p. 120.)