Fingerprints are generally described as: impressions forming a pattern made by pressing the tip of a finger on a surface taken for the purpose of identification, (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus). We are familiar with the physical prints used to determine identification. Such information is gathered when public agencies determine someone’s true persona or we need to prove our own identity.
Forensic marks, small pieces of nature that we interact with in our daily lives, also leave a trail for others’ to follow when attempting to analyze our interactive history. If we touch a flower we pick-up and deposit bits of the pollen. When we walk through the woods we crunch a variety of leaves on the forest floor. These bits and pieces of debris attach to our shoes and socks and eventually fall off onto other places on which we place our shoes, i.e. bedroom rug, kitchen floor, car mats, gym equipment. They tell everyone that we have been walking in the woods. This evidence can even pinpoint the types of trees and flowers that were growing in the area.
There are also psychological fingerprints that we leave on others’ lives when we interact with them. These imprints don’t fade from the lives that we touch. The consequences of these interactions, these fingerprints, linger after we communicate with the people in our lives. These ripples of our interactions are like a shower that rains down evidence of our emotions, feelings, actions, motives and hidden agendas all of which tells, anyone who is astute enough to examine the debris that is left from the exchange, what our true intentions are when initiating the encounter.
Tracing this psychological evidence is a science. Matching the ridges of physical fingerprints is a science. Analyzing the impressions is a specialty. Your prints on others’ lives are lasting whether they be physical, forensic or psychological – it’s your job to make them either famous or infamous.