“My limbs give way and my mouth goes dry. My body shakes, and the hair lifts on my skin.”

Thousands of years before anyone had clinical words for it, this verse describes what fear does to a body: the dry mouth, the shaking, the skin prickling. Arjuna is a trained warrior at the height of his powers, and none of that helps him here.

The Gita begins with this, and the choice matters. Whatever the old text goes on to say about steadiness, it starts by taking a panic seriously, in the first person, without shame.