The difference between emotional and logical language

A professor of mine said something a few years ago that stuck with me. He said, “You can’t argue against a feeling.” In this case, he was referring to his wife’s urge to adopt another child. No matter what he told her, no matter what logical backing he used to refute her push for another child (e.g., already having two children, lacking money, getting too old to raise another child, etc.), she remained adamant. When he finally asked her why she wouldn’t let it go, she said, “I feel like I need to do this. I won’t feel whole if I don’t have another child.” She attributed it to her maternal instincts and to a distinct, immutable feeling, and despite himself, he couldn’t argue against it.

The language of emotion is, rather obviously, much different than the language of logic. Think of it in terms of your mother (or a close family member). We love our mothers not because of some list of criteria or reasoning, but because we feel bonded to her. It’s a bond that’s been written about and portrayed through a large number of mediums (poetry, prose, film, music, etc.). We can read a poem dedicated to one’s mother or watch a film based on the relationship between a mother and daughter, and see the same words and the same events happening before us. But we all contribute different feelings toward the piece and toward our own mothers. I don’t think any of us could adequately describe the love we hold for them. It’s something that goes beyond traditional language.

The same can be said with romantic partners. We don’t fall in love with someone because of a catalog of positive attributes (we may like to brag about these to friends but in regards to our genuine feeling of love toward him or her, these have little to do with it), nor do we attribute this love to a lack of flaws in the other person. If we did this, we’d be searching for the “perfect match” our entire lives. This kind of romantic love, rather, is the ability to love someone despite their flaws. It’s a matter of achieving a level of intimacy with someone that you understand the way they think and, even if you don’t agree with some of it, you love them anyway.

This is why we can’t apply terms of logical or referential backing to strong emotions. We’re unable to make conclusions such as “I love my son because of a, b and c,” nor can we say things like “Anger is anger (i.e., that the same definition of anger holds for everyone—unlike “a collarbone is a collarbone,” which, more or less, has the same scientific definition for everyone).

It’s this language of emotion that makes poetry so captivating. The poet and the reader are able to speak to each other on a deeper, more psychologically rooted level rather than a level fixed in logic. Even if a poem syntactically or conceptually doesn’t make sense, if the reader feels something poignant after reading it, then the poem succeeds, or makes sense, on an emotional level. We trust the poet’s words, just like we trust the writhing movements or head lashing of an admired musician on stage. No matter how outlandish something seems, if there is a tangible emotional response, we trust it.

Lili Taylor, in a short essay published in Poetry magazine, wrote “A poet told me that the job description of the poet is to say the unsayable. Another poet said no matter which way you cut it poems are about emotion. They are about deep emotion.” Later, when referring to her acting, she said “In a way, I am trying to name things with my emotions.” It is this “naming” that makes emotion a language, not something to be prescribed as purely illogical. When we feel something on an intense level, we name or define things in our world through the lens of this feeling or of multiple feelings. It’s something extremely personal but also very absolute. In the individual’s mind, she’s right in the way she feels. And, in a way, she’s accurate in thinking this way. We take comfort in the fact that everyone’s mind is different. In our heightened emotions lies a more concentrated level of perceptivity, and it would be hasty to disregard them. In their chaos, there is reason.