How a Man Who Couldn't Care Less Taught Me to Detach from Outcomes

01Camus's Other Side: Philosophy Through Fiction

I wrote earlier about Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus (philosophical essay). But Camus is best known for his novels — especially 1942's L'Étranger (The Stranger).

If The Myth of Sisyphus is Camus using 'argument' to explain the absurd, then The Stranger is him using 'story' to make you feel it.

The protagonist Meursault is a peculiar man — he seems indifferent to everything, detached, uninvolved. His mother dies, he doesn't grieve. His girlfriend asks if he loves her, he says 'doesn't matter.' On the beach, he shoots a man because the sun is in his eyes.

And the most absurd part is his trial — the court sentences him to death largely not because he killed a man, but because 'he didn't cry at his mother's funeral.' Society cannot tolerate someone who refuses to perform emotions by the script, so it punishes his 'detachment' in the name of murder.

This absurd story contains a radical detachment from 'others' opinions' and 'social rules.' And that detachment, for an investor constantly pulled by market emotions and others' views, is surprisingly useful.

02Meursault's Detachment: Free from Others' Scripts

The core trait of Meursault is — he refuses to follow society's expected script.

Society expects you to cry at your mother's funeral (even if you don't feel sad), to say you love your girlfriend (even if you're not sure), to display 'normal' emotions. Meursault refuses — he is loyal only to his real, present feelings, even if it makes him seem cold, unsociable, and gets him sentenced to death.

This trait has its pathological side (Meursault's detachment borders on numbness), but it also carries a radical honesty and freedom — he is not hostage to 'what others think,' he doesn't perform for approval.

This has an unexpected but profound parallel for investors — one of the biggest psychological traps in investing is being 'held hostage by others' scripts'.

You buy a stock that goes against the consensus, everyone says you're wrong, you start to waver — not because your judgment has changed, but because you can't stand 'looking different' (remember Le Bon — the crowd strips away independence). You publicly favor a stock, then cling to it to maintain the image of being right (remember Cialdini's 'consistency principle'). Many of your decisions are based not on your real judgment, but on 'how will others see me.'

Meursault-style detachment is an antidote — be loyal only to your real judgment, act not for others' approval, and don't change out of fear of others' evaluations. This 'immunity to others' opinions' is the rarest psychological quality for contrarian investing.

03Detachment from Outcomes: An Existential Calm

There's another quality in Meursault that culminates at the story's end — detachment from outcomes (including death).

In the final pages, facing his imminent execution, Meursault experiences a strange calm. He accepts the world's absurdity and 'tender indifference.' He no longer expects salvation, no longer fears death. He reaches a kind of reconciliation with the universe that doesn't care about him.

This 'detachment from outcomes' is an existential calm — since the universe is fundamentally absurd and outcomes are largely uncontrollable, true freedom is not being enslaved by attachment to outcomes.

This echoes the 'process orientation' I talked about in the piece on The Myth of Sisyphus, but The Stranger gives it a more emotional, more radical version —

For investors, this means a deep mindset — detachment from single outcomes. Every investment outcome has a large uncontrollable luck component (remember Marks, Taleb). If you're enslaved by attachment to outcomes — losing sleep over paper losses, agonizing over missed trades, emotional over every tick — you're held hostage by the market's randomness.

Meursault-style detachment is protection — do your best on what you can control (the decision process), then maintain an existential calm about what you can't control (the single outcome). Not apathy — just not being enslaved by randomness. This calm allows you to maintain decision stability in violent market swings.

04Where I Disagree with Camus

First, Meursault's 'detachment' slides into 'numbness.'

Meursault's detachment from others' opinions is valuable. But his alienation goes to an extreme — his 'doesn't matter' about everything (including his mother's death, killing, his own fate) is not healthy detachment, but pathological numbness. A healthy investor mindset is 'detached from outcomes, but serious about process, genuinely connected to others.' Meursault loses the latter — his detachment comes at the cost of 'losing real engagement and emotion toward everything.' That's not what we want. We want 'detachment from outcomes,' not 'numbness about everything.' This boundary, Camus's Meursault crossed.

Second, 'not being held hostage by others' evaluations' does not equal 'ignoring all external feedback.'

Meursault lives entirely in his own world, caring nothing for external judgment. But in investing, 'not being held hostage by crowd emotions' and 'humbly listening to valuable external feedback' are two different things. The former is independence (good), the latter is closed-mindedness (bad). An investor who listens to no outside opinions and trusts only himself falls into another danger — stubbornness and blind spots (remember Wang Yangming — 'innate knowledge' needs external testing). Meursault's extreme independence must be paired with openness to genuinely valuable criticism, or it becomes dangerous self-isolation.

Third, existential 'detachment' may not be enough for a long-term, sustained endeavor.

Meursault-style 'detachment from outcomes' is a good antidote when facing single random outcomes. But investing (and life) is a long-term endeavor requiring sustained engagement and passion. A pure 'doesn't matter' attitude can erode the intrinsic motivation needed to persist and improve over time. You need detachment from outcomes (not being enslaved by single wins/losses), but you also need passion and commitment to 'doing this well long-term.' The balance — Camus's Meursault doesn't have it; he has only detachment, no engagement.

Fourth, it's a literary 'extreme experiment,' not a 'livable template' for life.

The Stranger is a philosophical, literary 'extreme experiment' — Camus uses an extremely alienated character to interrogate 'the absurdity of social rules.' But Meursault is not a template to live by. Someone who actually lived like Meursault would be paralyzed in life (lose all relationships, be rejected by society). Reading The Stranger, take its philosophical revelation (detachment from others' opinions, calm toward outcomes), not imitate its character state (pathological alienated numbness).

05[object Object] vs [object Object]: Two Versions of the Absurd — Story and Argument

The Stranger (novel) and The Myth of Sisyphus (essay) are two expressions of Camus's same philosophy (absurdism).

The Myth of Sisyphus is argument — it uses clear reasoning to tell you 'what is the absurd, and why you should live awake with it.' It appeals to your intellect.

The Stranger is story — it uses a character's fate to make you feel the absurd (a man sentenced to death for 'not crying at a funeral'). It appeals to your emotions and intuition.

The Myth of Sisyphus makes you 'understand' the absurd; The Stranger makes you 'feel' the absurd.

Together, they give investors a complete 'existential mindset' — use The Myth of Sisyphus to 'understand' why process orientation matters and why to engage awake with uncertainty (intellect); use The Stranger to 'feel' detachment from others' opinions and single outcomes (emotion).

And what they jointly point to is an extraordinarily valuable mindset for investors — in an absurd, uncontrollable market full of others' noise, maintain an inner independence and calm: not held hostage by crowd emotions (Meursault's independence), not enslaved by single outcomes (Meursault's detachment), do your best on the process you control (Sisyphus's wakefulness), then peacefully accept what you can't control.

06Closing Thoughts

My biggest takeaway from The Stranger is a double detachment — from 'others' opinions' and 'single outcomes' — though careful not to turn detachment into numbness like Meursault.

In investing, we're tortured by two things — others' evaluations (I'm different, does that make me look stupid? My public pick dropped, so embarrassing) and single outcomes (I lost money on this trade, I'm a failure; I missed that one, I'm so regretful).

These two tortures deform our decisions — abandoning independent judgment to avoid 'looking different' (held hostage by others' evaluations), or holding on or panic-cutting to avoid 'pain of loss' (held hostage by single outcomes).

Meursault-style detachment is a (needs-careful-use) antidote —

Detachment from others' evaluations: My decisions are based on my real judgment, not on 'how others will see me.' I don't give up independence to fit in, nor do I rebel just to 'look contrarian.' I am loyal only to my real, thought-through judgment.

Detachment from single outcomes: I do my best on what I can control (research, decisions, discipline), then maintain calm toward what I can't control (the luck component of single outcomes). I don't lose sleep over a single paper loss, don't agonize over a single miss. Because I know that what determines long-term fate is the quality of a long sequence of decisions, not any single random outcome.

But at the same time — I must hold the line that Meursault crossed: detachment is not numbness. I am detached from outcomes, but serious about process, curious about the world, genuinely connected to people around me, and passionate about 'doing this investing thing well for the long term.'

The Meursault who, before his execution, reconciled with the 'tender indifference of the universe,' gave me an extreme, must-be-careful, but genuinely valuable revelation —

When you are no longer enslaved by 'what others think' and 'this one outcome,' you are truly free. And that freedom is the foundation of staying awake and steady in an absurd, uncontrollable market.

Just don't forget — real wisdom is Meursault's detachment plus what he lacked: seriousness about process, and love for the world.