Free to Write

Research suggests, people are copycats. Usually, when a news story pops up, similar ones follow. Take the people who have entered the White House grounds illegally during the last two or three weeks. What blows my mind is that the first one was a baby’s innocent act. Imagine following a baby’s lead in doing something illegal. The subconscious desire to copy, mimic, or emulate the action of someone else is so powerful that it occurs even when people are aware they will be punished for the acting.

It may be possible that a negative environment predisposes a person to imitate negative actions, or in the case of running illegally into the White House yard, any mischief. This urge for imitation, however, must have been etched in our DNAs. From the moment we are born, we copy everyone around us. This is understandable because we are, then, trying to fit and survive in an alien world.

Yet, what can we make of the people who can’t help but imitate the gestures and facial expressions of newborns and repeat the half-formed words of a toddler? If only we could train our brains enough, we would cut the copycat behavior with the scissors of our mind.

Still, I wonder if scissors would be enough to do the job. How about a chainsaw?