The notion of emotion – a poem

The notion of emotion – a poem – by P.K. Odendaal- September 2019

It is well known that philosophers have shown

That we are what we think although there's a kink
Because we think what we are before we are what we think
And care not what we feel until we feel that we care
And none of the above is neither here nor there
And until we find what we do is all that's true
Our hearts do not care a hoot of what our minds can moot

If we trust our emotions we’ll have wrong notions

To treat our neurosis or some other psychosis
If we trust our heart our troubles will start
It deludes our heart and rips us apart

And as for our mind, it keeps us quite blind

Because it can never know where things will go.
If we have never tried to see how it lied
In every situation where we looked for elation

Sorry to have burst your bubble with all this trouble

But that is the fact until we have cracked.
To plainly see that we never will be
Sure of our thoughts without connecting the dots

It is always true for me and you

That every cause makes its own laws
And we never expect any disconnect
Before it’s too late to correct our mistake

Hegel said that every act to be rationally correct

Must be eclectic not to make us apoplectic
He called it the dialectic because it was hectic
To see every thing with only one sting

Not knowing the thing which we state has an opposite mate

And that was Pyrrho who ran this opposite show
He was so sure that there was no cure
Other than to state our indeterminate fate

That the thesis was never more true than its anti - thank you

And he was also quite sure that there was no cure
And that reality was as certain as an unraised curtain

So we sit here and dream until we can scream

That we are totally lost whatever the cost
And that we never are sure what is the cure
Of our state of mind which is so blind

Too blind to see the fate of this decree

And to scared to tell if it will one day go well
Until it’s too late to accept our fate
Or too soon to make us swoon
about the end of this road which seeds we have sowed