At the beginning of the new year 2020, no one would have thought the world would have changed dramatically since the spread COVID-19, and there is no sign of returning to normalcy any time soon. A year ago, there has been a discussion in an international summit on how does art and design education respond to the "grand challenges" of globalization? While we are still arguing about the content of the challenge, the apparent contradiction between "freedom and control", not surprisingly, has been brought to a head with this unexpected calamity for humanity. The other side of "freedom and control" is the game between self-discipline and desire. With the modern western civilization, represented by the technological development brought by the Industrial Revolution, promoting sufficient material progress to human society, it has also stimulated the freedom to release desire from the perspective of human nature. This seems to be the challenge that human society will face for a long time in the future. It is undoubted that Chinese civilization has already experienced the rapid development of production and design in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period. Faced with the suppression and criticism of desire, it has developed a culture of "restrained freedom". Whether it is self-discipline and desire, or restraint and release, we will eventually face unknown conflicts (or challenges). We cannot predict, just like no one can predict that COVID-19 would disrupt everything in an instant. What we can do is to keep calm and keep thinking: think from the perspective of human survival in the future and think with human society as the foundation of human beings. With such a "sense of anxiety", we would ask ourselves: what kind of "conflicts" will a people-oriented society face in the future? Then we'll try to find a solution.