The Good Love

Transcription of an interview to Joan Garriga by Alvaro Gomez. Original source: Ama bien a tu pareja, dile: Sin ti también me iría bien. Joan Garriga

The good love

“I am I and you are YOU. I am not in the world to fulfil your expectations, and you are not in the world to fill mine. I am to be myself and live my life, you are to be yourself and live your life. If we meet, it will be beautiful! If we do not, nothing will be done". This is the thought of Fritz Perls -creator of Gestalt therapy- about the loving relationship on couples, which Joan Garriga has applied to thousands of couples since 26 years ago when he co-founded the Gestalt Institute (Institut Gestalt) of Barcelona, specializing in gestalt, PNL (Neurolinguistic Programming) and Family Constellations. Garriga summarized his experience in the book El buen amor en la pareja (The good love in the couple) (Destino publisher).

- Do we need a couple?
+ We crave a link that provides us a sense of belonging, intimacy, sexuality and growth.

- And the couple gives it to us?
+ Yes, but today we want the couple to serve the SELF..., and that complicates everything.

- Better alone than in bad company?
+ Yes... but almost everyone prefers bad company! We tend to prefer some link... even a one of bad love!

- What to do to have good love?
+ There are four stages. First, falling in love: "I am interested in you..., but I don't know much about you." Second, relationship: "I know you better, and yet I choose to be with you!".

- Third
+ Commitment: "We are creating something more important than our families of origin and previous partners."

- And fourth?
+ Dedication: "I love you and what guides you". This is already a highly developed love...

- Why?
+ It is the spontaneous desire to make each other happy. You are happy when the other is happy!

- Big words, right?
+ Yes! Meanwhile, it matters to know this: nobody, nobody!, can make you happy!. And nobody, nobody!, can make you unhappy.

- So...?
+ Your happiness depends only on your intimate connection with your inner self.

- Does that happen?
+ A couple is not two people: it is the convergence of two family systems.

- What cost and benefit has the couple?
+ "Is it better to marry or remain single?", somebody asked Socrates, who said, "Marry. If things go well, you will be a little happier. And if you go wrong... you will be a philosopher!"

- Give me an example of bad love.
+ "I could not live without you", we tell to our partner, as if we were children and that is a bad love! Good love: "without you I would also go well"...

- Ah
+ ..."but as an adult, I choose to be with you". + "I love you for being you", we say, and it is not good!: good love is "I love you... despite of how you are", this is, good love accepts the shadows of the other, admits and smoothes over the asperities of the egos that are converging.

- Keep going, keep going...
+ "I want a couple": bad love! Stop demanding... do something!: "I better get ready to have a couple." Find your way to be a good partner..., and the rest will come by itself.

- Something very intense and emotional?
+ No! Such turbulences impoverish and devitalise the relationship, they come from child wounds and old yearnings not fulfilled. The enriching experience is when the relationship flows easily!

- Every couple is a relationship of power.
+ No! It is cooperation, in which one and one is more than two. Bad love: "I give you all".

- Why?
+ Giving so much can result in a feeling of debt in the other person, and make him/her to feel small. There is no equality. Give what the other can return without having to lose his/her dignity!

- What if one party requests, "Give me more"?
+ Maybe he/she is anchored in a role of dissatisfaction that feeds from demand: whatever you give to him/her, it will be always insufficient!

- Another example of bad love.
+ When you put your parents or your children before your partner. Good love is: "First WE!, before even our families of origin and our common children".

- Another example of good love.
+ Laugh and mourn together when facing adversities: deaths, abortions, ruins...

- How hard is the very long lasting of a couple, right?
+ Well, it lasts what lasts: enter into the love of couple also means to become a candidate for the pain of its possible end.


- How long does the average couple stay together?
+ We can expect three to four couples throughout our life..., with the consequent emotional stress! Each end teaches us pain and detachment..., and then back again into the track of love and life.

- Give one last tip to encourage good love in a couple.
+ Do not assume that you know all about your partner. Look at him/her again every day as if he/she was a new person, and you will see what you was not seeing. We relate to each other by the image that we get about the other person, but... is he/she like that today?

- Loving conclusion.
+ As I said: we usually claim from the other person: "Make me happy", but the good love consists in feeling the spontaneous desire to make each other happy.

Taken from the La Vanguardia LA CONTRA del 14/03/2013 Joan Garriga

The imposition of religion

Government must never impose any religion's beliefs on non-believers and vice versa. Religion is a simple matter of personal choice on what you want to believe and how you want to live your life in order to be happy without to disturb others' freedom. For those who still want to control and dominate people using ancient and deprecated concepts as excuse... I say to them: "Go away! The Middle Ages is over".

Pixelated Fashion

Taking a briefly looking behind to 2011 trends, below we have a good example of this type of moda which made 8-bit chic.

Goldfish - We Come Together

What is software and what gives you the right to create it?

Software is a combination among Science, Engineering, Design and Art; and given that knowledge is free and since you acquire it, you have the right to create all you imagine till reach the limits of your mind, err well... or copyright.

There is a book published on 2007, The Plenitude, which explains this point of view better than anyone. Rich Gold (1950-2003) is the author. He was an artist, composer, designer, inventor, lecturer, and writer. Also, he worked at various times for Sega, Mattel, and Xerox PARC.
John Maeda gave a small twist to the model: Art / express, Science / explore, design / communication, engineering / inventing.

The beauty of entropy The excitement of the unexpected

Today I woke up from my dream, I was in Paris. Just thoughts in my mind about something I left on my way behind me. Someone entered in the peaceful and happy atmosphere of my home without my permission. The curtains were pulled. Now, the sun's rays illuminate inside and the atmosphere is more colourful and confortable. I could feel her trail, her perfume, such if that person would still be in my home... Lancôme? Memories of her coming to my mind. A cheeky smile on my face. Life never ceases to amaze me!

The Pursuit of Happyness

"You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period." Steve Conrad

The fuel, the dreams

What makes us wake up everyday, what gives meaning to everything we do, the fuel for life, dreams.

Each refueling brings a period of autonomy, and depending on the quality and quantity of fuel, so we will have to refuel before or after.

It is the vital circle to any human being. Dreams must be renewed every so often if we do not want the engine of our life stops. We need to feel that we walk towards the achievement of our dreams, to feel that we own our future.

Eduard Punset - spanish lawyer, economist, and scientific popularizer - usually said "happiness is on the anteroom of happiness." In a conference, Punset tells how his dog Pastora taught him to understand the meaning of this phrase. He was preparing food for his dog while it was jumping around and wagging the tail. Then he used to leave the plate on the ground and the dog sometimes ate, sometimes did not. The mood of the dog changed when one big wish materialized. During the process of preparing the food, the dog was in the waiting room of happiness. At this period of time it was really happy.

Something similar happens to humans. We really enjoy the process towards the achievement of a dream, a goal or a success as well. And then? The mountaineer Willi Unsoeld said once: "It is curious how a dream comes fulfilled, there's just doubts left." The reason is simple, an illusion is lost and then a period of uneasy calm begins, a period that does not fill us, but which keeps us serened and with a cool head, where we feel that something is missing. This period is nothing else than a pit stop to refuel, to renew and consider new dreams. It is our nature, we are mavericks, we always want more.

We do not realize, but we usually have all ingredients in the hand: we have the car, engine, fuel, spark to start, the road, what are we missing? Learn to drive, to understand the world around us, know when to accelerate and make sacrifices, and when to go slow and enjoy. Let's enjoy the anteroom, day-to-day life. Let's shelve complexes, facing up the problems, let's gobble up the world... and let's regret having done something wrong instead of did not do anything.

A full life, full of happiness, is one where dreams and goals are renewed every so often, where we walk towards them slowly but steady, closing stages, where we get to enjoy the process and even if we stumble, we get up and we carry on with more strength and more wisdom.

"Happiness is not a goal but a lifestyle." Anonymous