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In class last Thursday we talked about primary experiences and how people behave in certain ways because they had a specific feeling. Feeling often explain why we act and how we act. Then we presented the question: Does the feeling or the action come first? After thinking about the question for a while and reflecting on my own experiences, I decided that it is both. Feelings can come before actions and actions can cause feelings. Why can’t both pathways exist? Why does one always have to come before the other? For example, if I saw someone eating a sandwich and it was around lunchtime I might begin to feel hungry. The act of looking at the sandwich caused my brain to respond with feelings of hunger. This feeling of hunger then causes the act of salvation and the production of digestive enzymes. In this case an action caused a feeling, followed by a feeling causing an action. The action came first. In another example, people with depression often feel sad for no particular reason, perhaps due to an imbalance of hormones. Without an action to spark an emotion, a depressed person may just feel sad, which may cause them to cry. In this example the emotion came first, causing an action. Both examples seem prevalent in the behavior of humans.