In writing down the past events, which he has always avoided with certain uneasiness, he thinks perhaps that he can get some relief.
He believes that his hyperconsciousness is a disease, because a nihilistic attitude has stopped him from feeling like he can be anything, "neither spiteful nor good, neither scoundrel nor noble, neither hero nor an insect" (pg. xv). At one point he fantasizes about being a normal man, for example a loafer. He imagines that if he were simply lazy, he could live at ease and die triumphantly, demanding respect all along the way, persecuting anyone who did not show him respect, and people would recognize that he was good. But this he cannot do. As Peterson states, men are inclined to laziness to hide behind their customs and opinions, to avoid upsetting their neighbour, who insists on convention and veils himself with it. Laziness is choosing to be like everyone else. It is hard to not follow the well-beaten path, which seems safe and secure and guarantees group identification and protection. Our hero is too conscious to choose the well-beaten path, the protective enclave of the group. His hyperconsciousness has led him to an intensely developed individuality, which involves his separation, loneliness and isolation. Peterson says that the true individual stands outside the protective enclave of acceptance, unredeemed- the personification of weakness, inferiority, vengefulness, cowardice, and difference. This man, weak, ignorant, vulnerable is a true individual, truly existing, truly experiencing, truly suffering. This is an adept description of our hero. It may be that he grasps his "trueness". At the end of the novel, he states that he has taken to extreme what others have not dared take halfway, and that they have taken their cowardice for good sense and have found comfort in deceiving themselves.
So, our revolutionary hero, who appears to have nihilistically and evilly withdrawn from the world, to live forty years in his self-generated hell, has voluntarily exposed himself to chaos.