You are a Copycat?

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders. But they have never failed to imitate them. - James Baldwin.

Every one in world are blessed with certain talents and gifts which makes one of a kind individual. Some are great keyboard players while others can't even play a simple "Birthday Song". Some are genius writers while some can't even write a leave application. Some are handicapped drawing circle while some give life to paintings. But one thing each and everyone can do is "Copying". We are all gifted copycat geniuses. Copying is registered in our sub-conscious mind.

What is Copying?

Copying is to make a similar or a identical version of something or to imitate something. 

What is Copycat?

Copycat is someone who has few ideas of their own and does or says exactly the same as someone else.

We Copy from cradle to grave.

We start copying the day we are born. We copy language, food, dressing, speaking accents, leaving style, routines and so many other daily activities we learn by copying from people surrounded. It all happens sub-consciously and we never pay attention to it. Do you remember our teacher used to tell us "students copy the notes", and of curse many of us passed the examinations by copying answers.  As we grow older we start noticing how our parents drive the car. We start noting when to and how to shift gears just be seeing them. Later we than go to driving school and copy or learn the way instructor drives. Sub-consciously our first driving instructor were our parents. Similarly the activity keeps on going till we die. We grow old copying things we don't know and that is completely natural. We Copy our way through life from cradle to grave because copying is easy to do.

We copy our daily life. 

Copying impacts virtually every single phase of our lives, from our smallest habits to our biggest life-altering decisions. For example, we spend a big part of our lives at work, did you ever stop to consider how you learned the task you perform at work? How did you learn to send mails to your associates? How did you know the work place attire and manners? Psychologists call it "modeling and mirroring."  We Copy trending items around us for example the recent trend of Dalgona Coffee. One person learned how to make it, made it and posted on Social Media and thousands of coffee enthusiast copied it and kept posting it on all social media platform making it a trend. We learn by copying from thousands of tutorial channels on YouTube. In olden times when we used to visit a barber shop, we used to get albums of film stars and asked barber to shape and dress hairs same as our favorite film stars, we simply copy the way film stars do. We copy the fashion we see in TV and movies. Similarly we copy almost everything in our daily life. 

Here is the amazing book about the concept of mirroring by 

Marco Iacoboni (Author).

Advertising and Consumer Goods industry uses this second nature of ours "Copying" to influence us to increase their sales. Most of us copy the products which others use. Advertisement industries plays external role to boost our power of copying and it impacts our daily life and routine. 

Copy is a shameful activity?

If we do not copy we cannot synchronize. Copying is our second nature and its not shameful to learn things by copying. Yes! There are copyright laws all over the world, but they are to protect their intellectual property, because they have invested their resource to create something and no body would like it if someone copies it without the creators permission. So its not really good to copy a copyrighted thing. But i am not here to explain about the copyright and its law, you can learn more about intellectual property rights in the best selling book "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS" by KHUSHDEEP DHARNI (Author). It is also available in Kindle Unlimited. 

It is not shameful until you copy it correctly. Things become worse when you learn it wrong or you copy from the one who has learned it wrong. There is no binary answer to the question "Is it good to copy"? Some times it becomes necessity and some time copying makes a big blooper. If you copy how to con from India's biggest con man Natwarlal than it would be most shameful act you will be doing, but if you copy the life of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Former President of India than you are on the right path. It again comes to the point that what,why,when,whom and how are you copying. 

But why do we Copy?

Copying is the most powerful learning tool known to humans. We have heard the line "Monkey see, Monkey do" goes same with us "Human see, Human do". We copy because we are genius at it, no one is better in copying the way we do. As i have already said that copying is our second nature but why do we copy? There are many reasons why we copy some of which are:

• It is Easy to Learn: Most of us have traveled at least once in an Airplane. We watch the air hostess carefully when she explains the protocols to follow in time of emergency. Indirectly she wants us to copy her in case emergency happens. We are not going to try something new at that time. The presentation she made to explain you were not to show her self but to help you copy because we will learn to do it easily if we copy it. Another great examples are the interns in operation theaters. Interns learn and copy from surgeons simply because its easy to learn from experienced surgeons. You copy your favorite dish from YouTube channel and give some extra topping and make it more delicious, Why? Its better and easy to copy than to get success by trial and errors. Individuals always fear to try new and start by copying from others just because it is easy and has no mistakes left behind and can be improvised once learned. 
• We believe when we see others doing it: If i say you do what i say you won't do it unless you see me doing the same. For example we learn good and bad habits only when we see them some one doing. Once i went to a Mosque but i was unaware about the rituals to perform over there and how to correctly worship unless i saw my friend doing it. I simply performed the rituals he did and i beveled only him doing it correctly. I do what i see because i believe what my eyes see. 
• You do not know how to do: We are not expert in all things we do. Many things we have to do but we don't really know how to deal with it. So all what we do is simply copy from the most available nearest source. Its simple we copy because we don't know how to do or what to do. 
• Blue print is already registered into brain:  Now this is a debating point. Many of us think that this is my idea, or i have not copied and its pure form of creation. But many times we see and understand things around us and our brain stores it, later when we need to finish our puzzle's missing part our brain finds it from the data previously stored. Our Copying Genius plays the role now, the brain analyze the situation and use the data which best fit into it. We can call it "Idea". I consider this point because our brain only knows what our Eyes and Ears have seen. Creative minds are the minds which use the stored information at the right place differently and appropriately. For example Aircraft design is borrowed by bird flight. Here Flying is copied. We than started examine how birds fly and developed a blue print in our minds. Painter learns to draw a sketch of a subject in front of him. He than shows his creativeness by modifying it in his own ways but the blue print is of the original subject that was in front of him.  We have copied so many things from nature. The nature is itself a blue print. Its just our genius  which helps us to use the blueprint given by nature. 
• Not all of us are creative: I can't create a Robot or repair it or even program it. But i can try to make it by copying it with instruction manual and help of expert. Same way the robotic expert may not able to write a novel as good as J.K Rowling. The other major reason is also that inventions require resources. Creativity and ideas are risky until they perform well. So most of us think that its better to imitate than to invent. Creativeness is not everyone's cup of tea, but copying is like the easiest form of source.  Unfortunately, all too often copycatting is an excuse to get lazy in our thinking. 

Good artists copy; great artists steal. -Pablo Picasso

 We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. Its OK! we are always good at copying and its in our sub-conscious mind.