On Fear

In an effort to get myself going on this blog, I’m posting a speech I delivered a few weeks ago at Alumni Day. Though I’m still not sure I deserved it, I received an award that day from Princeton that made me feel confident for the first time in my choice of career. I had to deliver a short response to the President’s announcement and decided to speak on fear — a feeling that I have grappled with throughout my life and continue to struggle with on a day-to-day basis.

In a year when society at-large has been so fixated on hope, I find it important to reflect on fear. Specifically, I’m interested in the role that fear plays in motivating us to strive for better — how we can master fear instead of letting it control us, how hope emerges from understanding fear’s place in our lives.

I guess that’s an apt a place as any to start this blog: with the knowledge that I am terrified at the uncertainty of the months ahead, and the hope that I will be able to respond to my fears with courage and heart.

Freedom from Fear Poster by Chip Kidd

“In our current economic climate, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed by fear. Particularly for those Princeton seniors on the brink of graduation, the job market is not looking particularly friendly. And for those of us applying to graduate school, competition has surged because everybody seems to be applying to grad school. This makes us understandably anxious and fearful about the future.

But when I think about it, my entire university experience has really been characterized by fear, and the continual challenge to overcome it. In Professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly’s freshman seminar, I felt constantly overwhelmed and intimidated because I lacked the cultural capital and confidence to participate in conversations with my peers. The professor encouraged me, however, to judge my work not by what others thought of it, but by the quality of my own experience.

She would take us on journeys into the New Jersey state prison, the state’s only maximum security facility, where we would partner with the inmates to discuss the relationship between poverty and incarceration. There, I met with prisoners who had committed triple homicides and other unthinkable atrocities. Getting to know these men made me realize how human they were, and how much the prison system infantilized them to make them seem less hostile. I realized that while there is no way we can exculpate them from the crimes they have committed, they are dearly sorry, and they want us to understand that. Throughout my Princeton experience, sociology has taught me the value of compassion, and that the gift of the liberal arts is the capacity for empathy.

Graphic design has recently served as a medium for me to articulate my ideas. I started the Student Design Agency with a couple of friends as a fun extracurricular activity. Little did I know that it would take over my life, and that I would be working 35 to 40 hours a week. It’s not a business model that would ever work in the real world, where profit is kind of a secondary motive. We earn maybe a dollar or two an hour at the end of the day. But what firms my dedication to our work is the idea that design can collectivize like-minded people around a worthy causes. And I am optimistic that the University will soon see it fit to add design to its curricular offerings.

Hope Poster by Paula Scher

What made me realize the strength of graphic design was a campaign that Dean Tom Dunne asked me to help with in reaction to JuicyCampus. JuicyCampus was a Web site created for students to post anonymous gossip about their peers. Students would post statements like, “That girl, you know, the one who got raped? You know she deserved it.” or “That guy, you know he must be gay, right?” We started the Own What You Think campaign as a way to attack fear by speaking to our values as a community. Students submitted positive statements about their peers, which I collaged onto posters. We also had an outdoor exhibition in front of Frist Campus Center, where the statements would be projected one after another after another – a wall of solidarity against the hate.

What I’ve discovered through these experiences is that it’s not really true that all we have to fear is fear itself. I don’t think FDR got it quite right. What we have to fear, I think, is our incapacity to overcome fear because we are immobilized by it, or because we think ourselves too small to make a difference. And as I think about the looming, uncertain future, I am really quite afraid.

But what I’ve gained at Princeton is the courage to face those fears. I’ve also learned that joining the Peace Corps doesn’t make you a saint. And neither do fancy accolades or recognition. All I can hope is that this award represents a commitment to be responsible to the ideals that this University has impressed upon me. And I challenge you all to face whatever it is you fear with dignity and compassion. Thank you.”