THE G.U.T TEST OF A REPUBLIC

Today is Republic Day. A day we, Indians celebrate and venerate as the day we granted ourselves the power to be ruled, by ourselves! To be sovereign. To have the power to make our own decisions, to give ourselves the independence of building a great nation. In the din of these celebrations we need to remind ourselves of the great responsibility that comes with this independence. The responsibility of conversing and communicating, with cultural accountability.

Many centuries ago Socrates used the Triple Filter Test to decide if he wanted to listen to a gossip about his friend, which was being served upon him by a well meaning disciple. Eons later the Triple filter test is still relevant to our conversations and communication, in our information overloaded digital era. Is what you are going to spew, generally GOOD? Is what you are going to share USEFUL to the person you are sharing it with?  Is what you are going to discharge verified by you as TRUE? Good – Useful – True. The G.U.T test.

Does your more often than not, well meaning communication pass the G.U.T test? Is it generally a Good thing? Is it Useful to the listener? Have you verified it as True? If not isn’t it worth more as a discard than to risk the share?

Neuroscience tells us that the GUT is our second brain. The ‘Enteric Nervous System’ as it is called has a strong neural connect to our brain. The neural system in our gut has about a few million neurons, almost the brain capacity of a house cat. This circuitry of neurons, hormones and chemical neurotransmitters not only sends messages to the brain about the status of our gut, it allows for the brain to directly impact the gut environment and has a reciprocal big impact on how our Brain functions. The mere linguistic syllogism, not withstanding, with the acrostic - G.U.T. The G.U.T test,  does necessitate responsibility in our everyone, every moment, everywhere conversations. Our biological GUT has the power to intuitively and accurately tell our brains, if these everyone, every moment, everywhere conversations, will actually pass the G.U.T test.

For, these everyone, every moment, everywhere conversations are what form the bedrock of our Culture. As a nation, as a society, as an organisation, as a household or as dyads/triads or other configurations of human groups.

We can consider each conversation as a metaphorical brick that goes on to build the edifice of the larger culture to which we belong. That larger culture can be our home, our housing society, our organisation, our nation or the largest culture – our human society. Every conversation that fails the G.U.T test is a weak brick in the block, making our cultural edifice fragile. Susceptible to attacks by vested interests. Before long such cultural edifices will be vandalised, victimised, vanquished!

For a Republic to thrive, every conversation must survive – The G.U.T test!

Vande Mataram. Jai Hind.

(All views expressed here are the views of the essayist and does not represent the official standpoints of any organisation the essayist is associated with)