Thanks my friend for another insightful post, even if it is a courageous one talking about yourself. Yes, that takes courage, to expose some of your inner self, to willingly and consciously take the vulnerable position; I admire that in people, and I'm not good at it myself at all.
The things you speak of are fundamental in the sense that fear is indeed one of our most deeply rooted and overwhelmingly important instincts. And it makes us behave irrationally indeed. It's been explained by evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology as follows: when ancient man heard a rustle in the bushes, it was better to assume that it was caused by a dangerous predator and immediately be on guard; the ones that assumed danger had a better chance to survive and reproduce. Overwhelmingly though the rustle would have been caused by a breeze or some insignificant rodent or insect; that's the rational assumption. But the rational assumption will get you killed one time out of a thousand, so we behave irrationally whenever we hear something in the dark we can not immediately recognize. And yes, you're also spot on when you assert that our minds have been programmed extensively. This programming makes use of those deeply rooted instincts and emotions, and explains why we're so easily ruled by fear...
We're only lucky that evolution has also given high value to that other emotion: love. Our minds are natural pattern-seekers and we can't help ourselves but to try and find patterns everywhere, also in time; that's why I believe we look back so much as the unknown future is something we fear generally, like we fear most things we don't know, that do not yet have a place in the patterns we've built our world model with so far. We hope to be able to extrapolate that future by following past patterns in time, so we don't have to fear that future so much...
That's enough. Typical for me to try and explain things away, instead of sharing my own inner self; I just lack the courage to do that I'm afraid... ;-)
This is a great point you bring up about the fundamental nature of fear @zyx066,
and in terms of an evolutionary aspect, it really makes sense..
One could even go as far as to say the emotion of love is a fundamental flaw in our evolutionary existence! I would say it's not a flaw however, because it gives a great deal of meaning to our existence, it also brings a great deal of pain with it at times, but that is part of what makes it special.
After all, without the presence of darkness, we cannot substantiate what light even is right? :)
That whole positive/negative topic. Humans tend to not like negativity, but we cannot deny that without its presence, there is no definition of what is positive, and therefore plays a vital role in our existence as well.
I think you're pretty courageous my friend. You have the courage to address topics that many are afraid to speak out about, and that takes a great deal of courage indeed.
I had a nice little laugh with how you ended that with "I'm afraid".. I'll say, a much needed laugh!
Thank you for your insightful comment. You always bring a meaningful perspective which leaves me with a smile. Thank you my friend! 😃