We’re all fascinated with our connection with the other. Most novices in Human Design are fascinated with seeing their chart connected to somebody else’s chart. It’s revelatory at that level. But it’s a generic to talk about an electro-magnetic connection. If you talk about an electro-magnetic connection isolated as a theoretical concept, then I think that it’s really easy to grasp. That is, my basic description of this going back to the very earliest days of Human Design was you have a Gate activated on one end and you have a Gate activated at the other. That’s an electro-magnetic connection. It is attraction and repulsion; it is love and it is hate.

It is a spark that can be there in any relationship. However, any of those descriptions that I’ve ever given for the way in which we connect to the other has only been given in the theoretical generic. In other words, an electro-magnetic is an electro-magnetic, so the assumption is that if you’re a Projector and you have an electro-magnetic connection with a Generator that it’s going to be the same as your electro-magnetic connection that you have with a Manifestor. Well, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s not like it changes what the generic is, it’s electro-magnetic. But it’s an electro-magnetic that operates in a very different way. I think where it is most dynamic in the way in which the differences are expressed is when you come to themes like compromise. Of course, compromise is—difficult is always a funny word to use—compromise is always the place where any relationship can develop problems.

No relationship can escape the dilemmas that arise from compromise. So, compromise is a very powerful force that exists in any relationship. Any presence of compromise means that there is always going to be a bone that’s being chewed on. It’s there. It isn’t going to go away. Awareness is nice, I love awareness, and it’s a wonderful thing. But it’s not like awareness can give you an advantage when you don’t have one in the sense of what compromise does. You’re still going to remain locked into the laws of the way in which those mechanics operate.

So, compromise is something that is very profound when it comes to understanding any kind of relationship, or the potential of any relationship. But when you see compromise in the way in which it operates, in fact it’s so very different.

Excerpt from You and the Other

Ra Uru Hu was the Human Design System’s founder and messenger. Ra dedicated 25 years of his life to the development and teaching of the System around the world until he passed away in 2011.