Daal baati choorma mama bada soorma

IDK what that means, but someone said it and I found it funny. I find a lot of things that someone says funny. 

Anyway, was headed to an interview, and I was thinking about something, and I have been thinking of late that I do not have much original thought, it is just a gestalt of what I have read or watched, easy formed opinions that I just have attached myself to, waiting to recycle them again in a social setting. 

But then, at times, I really can think! And I do not know where those thoughts come from. 

So I was headed to the interview and was thinking... fear is such a beautiful thing, if you embrace and explore it, it is so stunning where it came from. The fear of being devoured by a wild beast, or a poisonous serpent or falling off heights, cannot possibly be something that is passed on culturally through learning or experiences, these are too deeply embedded in the human psyche. Similarly, it cannot be a survival mechanic evolved from the creatures that survived! How it would have evolved is, randomly, some organisms were scared of some things, and those that were scared managed to survive! Then the trait was inherited and passed on over millions of generations. 

Now... this points to some capacity of imagination or anticipation of really primitive organisms, our ancestors, at the genetic level. It is not a reaction to some actual threat, it is just a perception of the threat. As Darwin puts it in The expression of the emotions in man and animals, "I put my face close to the thick glass plate in front of the puff-adder in the Zoological Gardens, with the firm determination of not starting back if the snake struck at me; but as soon as the blow was struck, my resolution went for nothing, and I jumped a yard or two backwards with astonishing rapidity. My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger that had never been experienced." 

He goes on to add, "The violence of the start seems to depend partly on the vividness of the imagination, and partly on the condition, either habitual or temporary, of the nervous system. He who will attend to the starting of a horse, when tired and fresh, will perceive how perfect is the graduation from a mere glance to some unexpected object, with a momentary doubt whether it is dangerous, to a jump so rapid and violent, that the animal probably could not voluntarily whirl around in so rapidly a manner."

Now we know more about neuroscience, and can understand parts of the brain where the fear response is encoded, partially in the cerebellum. The networks that form the pathways for fear signals are actively being investigated for the development of new anxiety reducing drugs. 

To think, that the same process has repeated itself in all creatures, from dogs, to horses to humans, as well as some shared heritage with our common ancestors is really incredible. I then went on to wonder what dogs and snails dream of, and tried to reach into some domain of consciousness that was simultaneously both ancestral and primitive, with my imagination conjuring up visions of small rat-like creatures scurrying about in the shadows of dinosaurs. 

Somewhere, deep down, we may still retain the vestiges of a genetic aberration that made these rodents fearful of reptiles. I just wish that humans were gifted with sufficient cognition to explore the recesses of their brains as easily as reading a book.