Wherever you see people who seem to break away from the pack you will find the sneaky, opportunistic 'pilot fish'. If you are Barak Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie or Warren Buffett then the swarms of pilot fish are endless. If you are the recently unemployed, George W. Bush then the pilot fish have moved on.Ponzi investment schemes, shopping sales and traffic patterns all rely on our innate biological survival mechanisms help us to navigate in the midst of chaos. Pilot fish can quickly turn into a herd and are sometimes investors, sometimes homemakers and, in times of great economic or political hardship they are the unemployed and displaced who will migrate far and wide looking for work. People who watch the Home Shopping Network or live to strike it rich on eBay or the Antique Roadshow exhibit a herd mentality. When a person hits the lottery at a local convenience market, this triggers a rush by the other gamblers to gravitate to that shop in hopes of striking it rich. When my patients decide to stop their medication on their own because their postman told them of a 'better' medication their great aunt was on, these people are just following their instincts. The pilot fish is veering off to find a new herd.
Being a pilot fish is human nature. We humans survive better, live longer and happier lives if we take notice of what others are doing and follow their lead. In the case of taking medication, however, it is not always the person at the sales counter, the blogger from Arkansas or the lady in line at the bank who should lead the pack.
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