The Outside Edge: How Outsiders Can Succeed in a World Made by Insiders

1The Misfits

First let's recognize the outsider. We're all born to a tribe, and of a landscape. It's inescapable. But we don't all fit in. Some of us – for reasons we'll explore later – become alienated from the others. We're the misfits: rejecting or rejected by the colony. Over time, we develop an outlook that emphasizes the disconnect we feel with our peers. And, soon enough, we're on the edge, looking in – or just as often looking away.

There's nothing inherently enabling about this situation, no matter what the view of fashionable commentators. There are no advantages. There's no edge to being on the edge. In fact, over millennia it's a predicament costing misfits dear. Ostracism, bullying, assault – even rape and murder – are the usual ...