I tasted the life of an outsider for the first time when I was ostracized by one social collective I belonged to in my mid-teens, and then publicly humiliated by its members.
The emotional scar this traumatic experience left on me lingered until I visited the very place where it happened for the first time since then several years ago. About four decades had passed.
What did I see there? A bunch of onions! ;-) The place had stopped serving its original purpose and was being used as a storehouse for harvested onions. I suddenly realized that those who I thought had humiliated me had simply followed the collective ego unconsciously. The onions were very symbolic. What could I do there except laugh - and in a very healthy way at that? How could I blame onions? ;-)
Though I've long been liberated from this trauma, I've followed - first unconsciously, then consciously - the lesson I learned "on my flesh", so to speak. I've developed a very subtle sensitivity to even the tiniest scent of the collective ego, which has inevitably made me feel like an outsider wherever I go, as I haven't been able to feel at home in any social collective.
Even when I felt comfortable in some collective at first, I would begin to feel uncomfortable after a while and eventually leave. I have a long list of such collectives I've left this way. The last one was academia. Those who have never worked in academia may not be able to imagine that it also has a collective ego. I have "good news" for you - many of those who are inside aren't aware of it either, so please don't blame yourself. ;-)
Since I left academia, I've found a new profession. I'm a "professional outsider"! ;-) I already know that I can only truly feel comfortable with fellow "professional outsiders" but on one condition - that we don't form a group of our own. We are connected only spiritually, not egoically.
Though I didn't want to leave Jerusalem, I also feel rather relieved now, as I had begun to feel choked in one collective. Here, I have few opportunities to socialize with fellow Jews except when I visit a local Chabad House once a year on the High Holidays. In the place where I've lived since leaving Jerusalem, I also have few opportunities for meaningful face-to-face communication.
Sometimes I miss such occasions, but mostly I feel serene - perhaps partly because I know that physical loneliness is temporary, and physical loneliness doesn't mean spiritual aloneness. Davka in this physical loneliness I feel far more connected with the Universe, especially when I seclude myself in nature without labeling anything linguistically.
I've found a new local minyan of flowers and leaves. They never label me, nor do they force me to follow any collective ego. We communicate with each other in the native language of the soul - silence - though I can't help caressing them in Russian. ;-)