In an interview, Argentine psychoanalyst and writer Gabriel Rolón analyzed the construction of identity and personal satisfaction in achieving happiness. The author of the work La felicidad explained the psychic mechanisms that hinder connection with one’s own will due to the constant pressure exerted by the desires of others.
When asked about not knowing what desire is and not knowing what to desire, the specialist emphasized: «It is not easy to know what you desire. It is not easy. Because so many things stand between desire and oneself. The first thing that stands in the way are the desires of others. Those voices. Those mandates, what was expected of us.»
Rolón argued that people live under the weight of discourses that do not belong to them: «We are so permeated by others’ opinions that we become eccentric to ourselves.» And he added that personal effort is, ultimately, the engine that allows us to transform reality.
«Happiness as the possibility of looking inward without feeling ashamed of who you are. And I believe that of those voices, sometimes that inward gaze is what saves you,» the specialist reflected. He stated that the importance of happiness lies in each individual feeling comfortable with who they are, regardless of the mandates of others.
«All those external voices that told us how we should be, whom we should love, whether we should study or not, whether we would be happy or were good for nothing. All those voices that built and accompanied us from the day we were born, very often stand between our desire and ourselves,» he added.
This condition causes the individual to be placed outside their own center and for the voices of parents and society to cloud the capacity for choice, according to the specialist. «Those mandates appear, those criticisms, that pain that sometimes inhabits us when we know we are disappointing what was expected of us,» he emphasized.
In this context, Rolón explained that the process of self-knowledge involves separating real longings from the impositions that the environment places on each person. Often, the subject discovers that their current goals respond to what their inner circle expected of them and not to an internal drive.
«We all have to take responsibility for something that is expected of us. No one comes into this world naively, without something preceding them. If you’re lucky, a good desire,» he emphasized.
«That narcissism that parents transmit to their children, where it goes, you will have everything I didn’t have. Stop, and who told you that I want to have what you didn’t have? Be a little more merciful, let me find out what I desire,» he added.
Likewise, Rolón delved into people’s difficulty in being happy, because not everyone knows their own desires: «We are always eccentric to our desires, overwhelmed by words and desires of others, which sometimes come from family, sometimes from society, because society and culture are a challenge that must be faced.»
That is why the psychoanalyst explained the superego as that place where those discourses dwell, whether good or bad, and somehow suggest the person’s destiny. «So, I like to define psychoanalysis as the art of trying to prevent someone from fulfilling their destiny. Because sometimes we think no, I want to achieve my destiny. No, no, what you want to achieve is your desire then. Why? Because destiny comes from another place, it is eccentric to you,» he concluded.
che para mi la felicidad no es mirar pa dentro es tener guita y poder y que no te rompan las bolas los zurdos de mierda con sus ideologias dejense de pavadas y pongan huevos que la vida es de los machos dale gabriel pero hacete cargo
Para mí esto huele a cuento de cheto individualista. La felicidad no es mirarse el ombligo como dice Rolón, es laburar codo a codo con tus compas. ¡La felicidad es colectiva o no es nada! Dejense de joder con el individuo, esto es verso yanki de autoayuda berreta.