Colin Wilson was a neoexistentialist philosopher, researcher, critic and
novelist. His most famous work was “The Outsider”, an analysis of the
alienation of the creative individual. According to Wilson “an ‘outsider’…is a
self-actualiser who wants to sidestep the demands of everyday life and get down
to creation. He (or she) wants to evolve, to move on.” Wilson wrote a vast
amounts of books ranging from philosophy and religion to the occult and the
history of crime.
The basic element that underpinned Wilson’s work was the desire to
overcome mundane reality and reach a new level of consciousness. Many people tend to think that a typical day
is rather tedious and repetitive, but in reality they are just not making the
effort to analyze their situation. Wilson insisted
that people aren’t one-dimensional beings but also possess the abilities of
critical analysis and imagination. He suggested that if we utilized our
critical and imaginative abilities we would realize that the world is a
meaningful and interesting place filled with infinite possibilities.
Wilson’s most important idea was the theory of “peak experience”: these
are brief but very intense experiences in which our senses and energies seem to
heighten and the world takes on a new positive meaning. Artists and creative
people seem to have this type of experience when they are inspired -Wilson
proposed that anyone can induce them by sheer effort of the
will. He saw these “peak experiences” as indications that humans possess unrealized
potentialities and believed that our primary aim in life should be to develop and
expand our understanding. He never failed to stress the importance of having a
positive outlook on life and opposed pessimist theories which describe life as
futile and meaningless.
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