Spit Not!

The world is seized with the challenge of the deadly pandemic caused by Covid19. Measures to cope with the killer virus include social distancing, isolation of the infected and disinfecting as a habit. Hopefully, the gravity of the situation will help create best practices in hygiene. One such concern is the habit of spitting in public spaces.

Besides the physical tendency of ejecting saliva and other substances from the mouth, we see the ‘spit out’ trend on social media as well as interpersonal communication. Such ‘spit’ is contaminating and endangering the community by creating clutter of confusion.

We are ejecting out negative, false or irrelevant information or interpretations. Some of these is that we received from others. Without bothering to ponder or confirm the veracity, we forward it… a case of swallowing someone else ‘spit’ and ‘spitting’ it on our friends and colleagues.

Often, it is the bile of prejudice that we spit out. There is the arrogance of being more knowledgeable than the experts. Also, we find the trigger-happy tendency of wanting to be the first to ‘spit’ it out. And of course, there is also the reflexive ‘spitting’ where we are not aware that we have cast out infected ‘spit’ on the one before us.

In all cases – physical, psychological or pathological – we need to ensure that we do not spit out. We must dispose of it in a safe way that contaminates none. We must use our discerning thinking. After all, when the ‘spit’ is out in the open, it endangers the safety of everyone!

Use the discretion of discerning thought

Never mind the surging urge… Spit Not!

~ Pravin K Sabnis