i didn't explain what i was trying to get at with "feelings come first" well enough. i believe people are constantly associating their current emotional state

i didn't explain what i was trying to get at with "feelings come first" well enough. i believe people are constantly associating their current emotional state with their current area of perceptive focus. for instance let's say you go through a bad breakup and drink chocolate milk every day for a week while crying into your chocolate milk. when you drink chocolate milk again months later, you're going to remember that association and have a twinge of sadness. i think this process goes on constantly (with much less intensity usually) with everything you do. feelings come first. your associated emotions are the reasons you have the beliefs you have! they're the reason you have the goals you have, the fears you have, etc etc etc. the myriad tiny emotional associations you feel constantly are the low-level stuff on which the higher-level construct of thoughts is built. that is what i'm saying.