The Worst Mistake

The Worst Mistake

I made a lot of mistakes when I was at Cornell. I didn't seek out help when I felt myself hitting intellectual walls. I wasn't organized with my time, both academically and personally, as I needed to be.

But the worst mistake? I let myself get intimidated.

Even after I decided to leave, even after I knew, at some level, that the individuals in my department, or at the university, would have at best a modest professional impact on my future, I was still intimidated, to the point of being scared. I was intimidated by my boss. I was intimidated by my mentors. I was intimidated by the place, by the damn history and brand of the Ivy League.


And when I got intimidated, I started doubting the value of your ideas, and of your very self. It's the worst possible slippery slope out there.

To be driven by fear is to cede the reins of character and destiny to another, or to no one at all, even if, ultimately, we are the ones to choose to fear - even if, as was my case, I alone held the proverbial gun to my head.

I have seen myself, and those I love, driven by fear on many occassions. We may respond to it differently - some bluster and grow angry when discussing topics beyond their understanding, as if anger was a sufficient armor against self-imposed ignorance.

Some grow even more timid and withdrawn, further handicapping their ability to deal with a changing and hysteretic world.

Some turn the handicap of ignorance into a standard, by which to rally other fearful men and women. When they grow powerful enough, they create their own courage, and their own truth.


A quote from Edward R. Murrow, "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy".

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. (1)

I take this quote not because my circumstances at Cornell were in no way like the McCarthy era, but simply because it's one of the finest quotes I've come across on the place for dissent and intellectual bravery.

While I was at Cornell, I learned that the best lead not through fear of intimidation, behind a cordon of specialized language and memes that, as in many other professions, serve more as barriers to entry and identifiers of class and station than as important concepts and shortcuts that facilitate discussion among professionals.

The best lead through a different sort of fear. We who look up to them fear disappointing them, fear falling short of their crisply gauged expectations of our potential. Mountains have been moved, and wars have been won, by individuals motivated by such fear, that, with enough time and confidence building, develops into a full-blown respect of self, of their mentor, and of that common cause that provides both goal and environment for the development of character.

In other words, the best lead not through intimidation, but by being beacons so worthy of respect that we would drive ourselves out of an ancient need to be close to those who best embody tribe and honor.

We are but men and women, all of us. But few enough remember that, and choose to at least live as men and women. Whatever we do, whatever we have been, we must never, never, give in to the temptation to settle for less than that.

(1) From http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html.