Get to Know Outsiders but Don’t Be One Yourself
“By the decree of the angels, and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza [… ]. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him [… ]. We order that no one should communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favor, or stay with him under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or written by him.”
With this writ of excommunication—published in 1656 and in the un-abbreviated version approximately four times as long and five times as harsh—the twenty-three-year-old, highly strung Spinoza was cast out of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. He had been denounced at the highest official level as persona non grata, as an outsider. Although Spinoza hadn’t published anything by that point, the young intellectual’s freethinking views had put him on a collision course with the establishment. Today, Spinoza is considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time.
We might chuckle about the excommunication, but poor Baruch probably didn’t find it so amusing. Imagine if the authorities cursed you in all the newspapers, on billboards, and on every single social media platform, and if agents were posted everywhere to make sure that nobody approached you or spoke to you. It must have stunned him.
If you’re a member of a business club, you’ll know all about the advantages of membership. You’ll have free access to club facilities, where the plush armchairs are comfortable enough to sleep in, the tables are spread with the latest magazines, and you can always find someone for a congenial chat. Basically, the whole infrastructure is set up to cater to your needs.
Most people are members of one or more “clubs”—as employees at a company, pupils at a school, professors at a university, citizens of a city, members of an association and so on. All these groups meet our needs; we’ve grown comfortable in them. We feel looked after.
Yet there are always people who are not members of any club. Either they avoid them on purpose, they were never let in in the first place, or they were kicked out, like Spinoza. Most of these outsiders are crazy people, but not all. Occasionally one of them turns out to be somebody who pushes the world one step forward, all by themselves. The number of breakthroughs in science, economics and culture that can be attributed to outsiders is astonishing. Einstein, for example, couldn’t find a job at a university, so he eked out a badly paid living as a third-class patent officer in Bern and revolutionized physics in his spare time. Two hundred years earlier, Newton developed the law of gravity and invented a whole branch of mathematics, even though his club (Trinity College, Cambridge) had been forced to close due to rampant bubonic plague and he’d spent two years living in the country. Charles Darwin was an independent researcher, never salaried at an institution and never employed as a professor. Margaret Thatcher, one of the strongest British prime ministers, was a housewife who exploded onto the political scene out of nowhere. Jazz is a musical genre created entirely by outsiders. So is rap. The list of great writers, thinkers and artists includes countless nonconformists: Kleist, Nietzsche, Wilde, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Gaugin. And let’s not forget that the founders of all religions, without exception, were outsiders. Of course, we don’t want to overestimate the impact of “great women” and “great men” (see Chapter 41). If they’d never existed, other women and men would have stepped into their place to similarly stellar effect. The point, however, is this: outsiders tend to be quicker and therefore earlier to make an impact than insiders.
Outsiders enjoy a tactical advantage. They don’t have to adhere to establishment protocols, which would slow them down. They don’t have to play along with the bullshit that’s a permanent fixture in most clubs. They don’t have to dumb down their ideas with visually snazzy but ridiculous PowerPoint slides. They can sidestep the kind of nerve-wracking power plays you get in meetings. They can happily ignore convention, and are under no pressure to accept invitations or take part in events simply to “show their face”—because they were never invited in the first place. They don’t have to be politically correct for fear of expulsion, because they’re already on the outside.
Another advantage: their position off the intellectual beaten track sharpens their perception of the contradictions and shortcomings of the prevailing system, to which members of the club are blind. Outsiders look more deeply, meaning that their critique of the status quo is not cosmetic but fundamental.
There’s a certain romance about the idea of living as an outsider—but don’t make the mistake of becoming one yourself. The forces of society will be arrayed against you. The headwinds will be pitiless and sharp. Virtually all outsiders are broken by the world, which opposes them with all its might. Only a few shine as bright as comets. No, the life of an outsider is the stuff of movies, not of the good life.
So what to do? Keep one foot firmly planted in the establishment. That way you’ll secure all the advantages of club membership. But let your other foot wander. I know that sounds like a bit of a challenge, flexibility-wise; in practice, however, it works well. Make friends with outsiders. It’s easier said than done. Here are the rules for getting along with them: 1) No flattery. Just be genuinely interested in their work. 2) Don’t stand on your dignity. Outsiders couldn’t care less whether you’ve got a PhD or are president of the Rotary Club. 3) Be tolerant. Outsiders are rarely on time. Sometimes they’re unwashed or wearing colorful shirts. 4) Reciprocity. Give them something back: ideas, money, connections.
Once you’ve perfected this balancing act, it’s possible you might even become a connective piece, as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates managed to be—both were members of the establishment with strong connections in the community of crazy technology freaks. These days hardly any CEOs are in contact with outsiders. No wonder so many companies are running out of ideas.
At the end of the day, it’s better to have a Van Gogh on your wall than to be Van Gogh. Best of all is to surround yourself with as many living Van Goghs as possible. Their fresh perspective will rub off on you—and help you on your way to the good life.