From the race riots of the Sixities through watching the recent ethnic and religious disruptions brought me to wish the impossible--that most human emotions would disappear. That hatred, greed, revenge and rage would be passé. That we might live like a science-fiction android whose behavior was flawlessly functional, peaceful. On second and third thoughts, life devoid of emotions would be, at best, grey. Perhaps homely and bland.
I think it is sometimes the reflection of one emotion against its opposite that can guide toward harmony. Sometimes the feedback of the emotions themselves may help us centerward, moving toward peace and self-realization.
Emotions can color life brightly;
letting emotions run amok courts disaster.
In the spectre of crises
emotions' immediacy may save us.
Yet emotions frequently assault--
with an echoing rebuke of guilt:
the caution of fear's siege,
the corruption of envy,
the hollowness of revenge,
the brimstone of anger.
The sage pause reflectively in contemplation,
watching emotions' flux and flow.
