“Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”Oscar Wilde · De Profundis · 1905 · Partea a II-a
Wilde describes a secondhand existence in which no element is original. The mechanism is social mimicry: it is safer to think what the group thinks and feel what is felt around you. Someone who reads only reviews before deciding which film they enjoyed, or who realizes after a breakup that they loved because it was expected, lives exactly this way.
Wilde notices something harsher than mere conformity: imitation doesn't stay on the surface, it comes to replace experience itself. The secondhand person doesn't just speak like the group, but feels on command. He rejoices when it's time to rejoice, grieves on schedule. It is a kind of anesthesia: nothing hurts, because nothing is his own. Think of someone who applauds at the end of a show only because the first wave of clapping has started. He claps, but he didn't choose to clap. The question that follows is simple: how would you know if an emotion is truly yours?
Why it matters A sincerity test for daily choices: if you cannot name a single opinion that is genuinely yours, it is worth asking the question before life asks it for you.