Ultimate Outsiders - willingly so

In the sixty years since Colin Wilson published The Outsider - describing the state of sociological, psychological and spiritual alienation characteristic of the past couple of centuries - the situation has changed.

In 1956 it was possible to regard the Outsider as being rescued from his predicament by external change - but now he can only rescue himself. 

The current Outsider has only one place to look for help: within himself.

Thus - in politics and sociology there are no utopias, and all large institutions are thoroughly corrupted including the main churches. The intellectual elites are dishonest and incompetent. Science in 1956 was overwhelmingly successful - but has become a careerist bureaucracy. The universities seemed like a haven of privilege and leisure; but they are now the habitus of petty officials, dishonest spinners and box tickers.

We have no leaders - only middle managers and psychopaths - therefore, we must rely on ourselves. 

There is nobody else to turn-to. We must find what we need in our-selves - because it will not be supplied by any person or institution.

We, here and now, are the ultimate Outsiders because we have nowhere to turn - indeed, there are very few other people even to talk with about such matters. We are fortunate indeed if we have a marriage and family to sustain us - because these too have been destroyed over the past 60 years.

We we cannot trust anybody, we must trust ourselves. We are forced either to seek oblivion in distraction and intoxication or suicide - to escape alienation by escaping consciousness; or else to look within. 

But looking within is the answer! It always was - if only the Outsider allows himself to acknowledge the reality of God!

When we look within, and begin to dismantle the false selves and automatic thinking, we find God.

The old Outsiders such as Nietzsche regarded the God-within (the Self) as an alternative to God; but we know that the God within is God. 

Since we are God's children we ourselves are divine (Christians know this - or should), which means we have 'inherited' divinity. God is within us as well as without - the external God is denied us but God within is undeniable.

We can, should and will find Christianity within us - we can find Christianity despite being denied true and valid scriptures, tradition, legitimate religious teaching, rituals... we can find Christianity within us with total confidence because we know our loving God who created and sustains reality would not leave us unprovided for.

If within is the only place left to us; then within will suffice - we will find there everything we need.

We will find faith, courage, and motivation; we will find love.

We are in a situation where - if we honestly seek to answer the condition of alienation, nihilism and despair - there is no alternative to doing what we should anyway be doing: looking within - to find not only our true selves, but God and all the necessities that only God can provide.

We have the possibility of a degree of spiritual agency, freedom and autonomy seldom seen in the history of the world. And everything is channelling us towards exactly that.

We are fated to be the Ultimate Outsiders - like it or not. 

But we can solve the problem of alienation by willingly becoming the Ultimate Outsiders... By embracing, rather than avoiding, reality - we can become free, true and live from our divinity (albeit partially, with frequent errors and sins - but that is enough).

We cannot be made to make the right choice - we might instead continue to choose oblivion and the destruction of consciousness... drugs, social media, transgressive sex - even the destruction of our own persons by transhumanist technologies.

However, that choice is becoming clearer and clearer, more and more conscious - to the point of being unavoidable.

Yes indeed, things have 'come to a point'...


Note: The crux of my point is that God (as Christians understand God: creator, loving, and a personal God - concerned by every individual) would not leave anybody, at any time or in any place, bereft of spiritual necessities. The world, as we actually experience it, from our own point of view, is adequate. Indeed, since life is not a random accident; in some vital sense you and I personally (and everybody else) have been placed into mortal life in a time and at a place at-least-adequately suited to our individual needs for experiencing and learning.

Edited from a post of 18/7/17 - H/T Laeth for the reminder.