RetroAdventurer

This is completely untrue. Emotions determine what we pay attention to, by sorting out what's scary, important, interesting, sad, socially significant, etc. We think about things that are brought to the forefront of our mind by our feelings.

This is only partially true. Emotions are faster and we can rationalise our decision-making afterwards. But we can also deliberately or subconsciously think in a certain direction to conjure up emotions.

What provides the initial motivation to do that, though? Without emotions we have pure apathy.

You can’t be happy or unhappy about losing your job until you actually know that you lost your job and then form a thought about it. You might tell yourself: “What a relief!” or “I’ll starve!” and then you’ll experience the emotion that results from that thought.

You don't even think about losing your job though, unless your brain tells you this is important to you. Your job has feelings associated with it that cause you to care about whether you have one or not.

Apathy is more of an emotion that a neutral state. Thought can be visual too, e.g. remember a specific memory, then when you have the memory you conjure up an emotion. However, you can have emotions without any associated thought.

No, you can’t have an emotion without first having a thought. If you experience a stimuli, your subsequent emotion results from what you tell yourself about that stimuli.

Sorry, you will have to observe yourself more and get out your head. You can most definitely have an emotion without a thought.