Questioner: I have something to say. There is a very famous line which is called─ the survival of the fittest. Now, I am an actor, and I’m also a medical practitioner. I studied cardiology, and as an actor, I have always advocated less makeup and simpler ways of life to all the people who would follow me, for example. But say I take my own example. Today, I want to go and live in a forest. I will only ask one thing, and that is my security. Security of, if I will survive or not, that’s all. Only that will be my question at that time. Otherwise, I will manage the security of my survival by the conditions that I will be in. What am I supposed to get as an answer for that? Will I survive if I decide to go to these places where maybe people have not been or tried to live for too long? I’m sure today, people have tried to live a life away from citizen stuff, yes. But what if I go on a path where nobody has gone and I am living there? I will only be concerned for my security.
Acharya Prashant: Actually, de-growth does not mean that we necessarily have to go to the jungle and wipe out all civilization and dump all technology available. That’s not really the thing. It merely means sustainability. Act in a way that is sustainable.
The kind of resources we are using today, the Earth simply does not have enough to provide for us. If the entire population of the world makes as much use of resources as the average American individual, we will need seventeen planets like ours. Seventeen Earths is what we need. From where will we get all that? Do we have those minerals? Even fossil fuels are going to run out. They are anyway going to run out. Why not develop better technologies? Why not wean yourself away from them? So minimalism is not about getting rid of even the things that really mean something to you that really are essential. It means minimizing what is inessential and, in the process, probably maximizing what is essential. So minimalism is actually good news. It does not mean that you have to go to the extreme of reducing your consumption to zero. Even animals in the jungle do consume. Even animals, you know, adapt their physical nature to an extent so that it suits their needs. Haven’t we seen, for example, dogs dig up the earth when it’s quite hot?
