Gen Z Students: Respect *and* Break all Limits

Yesterday, as I walked by the entrance of Bengaluru City University (BCU), its logo and motto caught my attention.

The logo is based on the University’s motto ‘Aagu Nee Aniketana’ translated as ‘Be Boundless.’

The line is from the poem ‘Vishvamanava Sandesha’ by Kuvempu, the greatest Kannada poet of the 20th century.

The poem conveyed his message of universal brotherhood.

The poem’s opening lines translate as: “Oh spirit! Transcend all boundaries”

BCU shortened it to ‘Be Boundless’ — reflecting the University’s vision to be open and inclusive, enabling freedom of thought and expression.

“Be Boundless” sounds nice, but here is a hiccup:

The Gen Z students studying at BCU and other colleges in India and worldwide face another injunction: “Be bounded” (by planetary limits).

As I explain in my new book The Frugal Economy:

“These days, the media is awash with alarmist headlines like ‘Humans have crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries that make Earth habitable’

Consequently, businesses and individuals are asked to “respect planetary boundaries” and injunctions are issued to “link planetary boundaries to business”

As climate change worsens, businesses bear a moral responsibility to respect the planetary boundaries and reduce the “negative externalities” of their economic activities.

This is why all businesses are now being asked to do LESS (harm).

But here is the big problem: we humans are not born to do LESS.

We are wired to do MORE.

Certain limits — like planetary boundaries — are worth respecting and you need to “play within (those) limits” and DO LESS

But other limits — physical, mental, scientific — need to be crossed to push out the boundaries of what humans can achieve, so we can DO MORE

Especially, we need to break our self-limiting belief that “we are all small” and strive to BE MORE

In fact, we aspire to not just do more, but “be” more. We want to break all physical and mental limits so we can experience… INFINITY

Here is, however, the dilemma: we yearn to experience infinity while living on a… finite planet.

How do we resolve this quandary? By becoming aware of two things:

1) “Infinite economic growth on a finite planet” is no longer sustainable

2) “Infinite human growth on a finite planet” is possible and worth pursuing as a noble goal

Alas, gaining this awareness alone isn’t enough.

We Indians must pursue a qualitatively different kind of growth that goes beyond Viksit Bharat (developed India) and aims to build Turya Bharat (enlightened India)

We must build a frugal economy that does BETTER with LESS.

A frugal economy will raise and expand our consciousness so we can stretch our mental and psychic limits and become better human beings while harming less our environment and respecting the planetary limits.

Let’s use our jugaad ingenuity and our millennia-old Indic wisdom to build a frugal economy that truly benefits people, society, and the planet.

I invite Gen Z students in India and worldwide to ‘Respect *and* Break All Limits’ !