Tag Archives: Aaron Carter

Spring Beginnings

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By Aaron Carter

It’s been just over a week since Spring Break and Baylor is starting to buzz again. After a short lull while we students shuffled about the post-break doldrums, we’ve gotten back into the grind and are ready to face the rest of the semester. Everyone is outside, it seems, taking in the sun and greeting warmer weather. Some of us are energized by the weather, others of us are starting to feel the pressure. When the weather gets warmer during the Spring semester, it comes to some of us as a looming omen. Finals first, then the end of another semester, another school year, and even, for seniors, the end of a chapter of life.

Although, I don’t think it does any good to think about Spring in that way. It isn’t the season about endings, after all. Being worried about what comes next is hardly the best way to spend these days. For now, the weather is warm enough to be out in shorts, but not hot enough to drive us into the air-conditioning. The waking grass is a bright apple green and the trees are starting to bud.

Take a walk. Baylor looks stunning right now, all dressed in green leaves and golden sunlight. It’s more than a shame to spend all your time studying or working. It’s a loss. If there is ever a time to allow distraction, it’s now.

Also, if you can’t spare the time to go out right now, then hold fast. Dia is coming.

Fueled by Distraction

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By Aaron Carter

One of the more nostalgic parts of my childhood is in the form of a restaurant that my family frequented when I was about five. It was a cheap, Greek-style place, with torn up carpet floors and dusty, fake plants hanging in every ceiling corner. Back then, you still had to specify that you wanted to sit in the non-smoking section. The glasses were a strange yellow color and all the food seemed like it had been fried. The placemats were thin white paper with an odd tan border design that looked like it had been borrowed from an ancient city somewhere.

I remember when that place got a TV. Everyone was excited. When that happened, instead of specifying whether or not they wanted to sit in the non-smoking section, customers began to specify whether or not they wanted to sit near the TV. They always did. Even some smokers abstained just to be near the screen. It was a major attraction.

Of course, we were all excited, especially my brother and I. It seemed like the future was finally moving in. I remember telling him that some day we’d have TVs that could fit in our pockets and play video games with graphics that were on par with the Nintendo 64. We would never be bored again.

Now, almost every dine-in restaurant has a TV. And if there are none in the dining area, there is nearly always one behind the bar. I used to make fun of my dad for spacing out and becoming absorbed by the screen. We would strategically position ourselves so that he wouldn’t face it and we could talk with him without worrying about him getting distracted. Today, there are screens everywhere, and I find myself getting distracted just like my dad, but not just by TVs. Everything has a screen now.

I’ve learned pretty quickly that I can’t actually study if there’s a screen in front of me. If I put my phone on the table next to my homework, it takes less than a minute for me to pick it back up again and click it back to life. It takes effort to have a conversation that goes further than simply skin-deep. If I go to a restaurant, there is almost nowhere I can sit where there isn’t some flash of light and motion ocurring in the corner of my eye. It takes work to stay focused.

I’m no Luddite, but it gets out of hand at times. I see students doing math problems at the library with a laptop open so they can take momentary breaks to check up on some notifications. I even see some people trying to read a textbook with their phone sitting on the page. It’s not an effective way to work and it’s definitely not an effective way to connect with a book, a writing project, or a person.

Even if you don’t think you are distracted, try eliminating screens from your view, just to see how much of a difference it makes. I know once the TV was set up in that restaurant, my family stopped engaging at the table as well as we used to. I also know that once we all had smart phones, interaction became shallower than a tide pool. Something tells me that it would be easy to get back to really focusing on each other if the screens weren’t such a big part of everything. It’s better to just plain focus than it is to have to continually refocus.

Being Present

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By Aaron Carter

As a Film and Digital Media major, my work involves wearing many different hats. Some days I set up lights in a studio, or operate a camera.  Other days I’m working on a screenplay, editing a film, or maybe even working with actors! One of my favorite jobs is working with sound. Some of my most memorable moments were those spent in the recording studio at Castellaw. I have recorded everything from punching sound effects to radio dramas. I have recorded audio and dialog for entire movies there—alone in the little soundproof room, waving my arms around like an idiot, trying to produce what I thought a scared frog might sound like.

I have however learned that the room is not completely soundproof. I was recording a series. This means I made the sound about twenty times over the course of a minute, got into it. One time I was imitating what it might sound like to get shot, and I got really into it. While I was recording, I noticed someone looking through the window on the door and they took off laughing. I was almost embarrassed. Almost. But I knew that I needed to craft the best voice effects possible, even if it meant looking like a fool! If I had tried to play it cool and produce that, it never would have worked. Your throat goes dry and you do things quietly and the work always turns out bad.

What I mean to say is this: If you do not allow yourself to be completely present while you’re working, you are usually wasting your time. Nothing amazing can be done halfheartedly. That does not mean you must like everything you do. But you must do everything to the best of your ability, even if it involves getting weird looks!

Learning from Experience

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By Aaron Carter

I feel the same way about the end of a semester as I do about birthdays—slightly happy to be more mature and slightly sad to see it all go. I can usually point out the major changes I have experienced over the course of a semester, just as I can think back on my previous birthday and immediately see the difference in my character and maturity.

Reflection is inevitable. Like the New Year, we make resolutions, like “I’ll study harder next semester” or “I’ll make more time for my friends.” Usually we follow through with at least one of these and at least for a little while. Some of these new habits stick. We think about our failures and our successes and decide to capitalize on them and make better use of our goods and lesser use of our evils.

This stage is incredibly useful to us. While we are thinking about finals and going home to enjoy a nice long break from our routine, it does us a lot of good to really reflect and to think about what we liked best about this semester in particular. Did we like our professors? Did we dislike them? Why?

The end of a semester invites deep learning. My required history class this semester taught me more than just world history. I learned about the character of my professor. I learned which learning styles worked for me and which ones didn’t. I learned more about the types of characteristics I admire in fellow students. These are lessons that shape your personality and your fundamental character as a student and future worker.

Take some time and look back. Learn not just from the classes, but from the experience of taking them.

Creating Knowledge

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By Aaron Carter

There is a billboard near Baylor’s campus, visible from the highway, that is mocked by every single student I know who has seen it. It proudly and boldly reads “Creating Knowledge,” a jostling and surprising phrase for one specific reason. Knowledge is a thing that we usually think of as something gained or discovered, not created. We do not think of it as a thing that we can just make up. One cannot invent a new fact about cells or horses or the world. We understand knowledge as the facts that were always there, waiting to be found.

But I think that this definition of knowledge is too restrictive. We are only looking at the phrase through one lens – a lens which defines knowledge as mere facts. I think that is why we find the billboard funny. With a little thought, I start to see the point of the phrase, and I realize that it is not quite so simple as I first assumed.

I believe that a person can indeed create knowledge. He or she does this by rearranging facts, ideas, personalities and more into new things like stories or artwork. If I were to tell you a tale about a sad robot that lived on another planet and picked fruit all day, I would have just created knowledge, in the sense that now you know about my sad robot and his fruit harvest. No, his physical existence is not a provable fact, but his existence as an idea is now apparent, and in that sense, he does now exist.

If we are looking at the robot through the lens of fact, you could argue that I have not created a fact. I have made up the story about the robot. The robot’s existence is not empirically provable, and the robot probably does not exist in the exact parameters of the story unless the universe is infinite—but that is also unprovable. The point is that you now know about my robot. You know that he is sad. You know that he picks fruit. That is knowledge, and I have created it.

The billboard seems laughable because its statement sounds too simple, and perhaps the boastful personality of its grand proclamation does little to help its standing. Indeed, maybe the person who came up with the phrase “Creating Knowledge” really did mean that Baylor is somehow in the business of creating new facts.

But that does not make any sense, and that is why it is funny to think that perhaps someone did believe it and had the unmeasurable dimwittedness to put such a thing on a billboard representing our university. That seems even more senseless. I think whoever wrote it or whatever committee accepted it believed that Baylor can indeed create knowledge, in the sense that it fosters an environment where people fuse their ideas together to create new ones. Knowledge of ideas is not the same as knowledge of facts, but both are immeasurably important.

I am no killjoy, though. I will probably continue to have a laugh whenever I drive back to campus and see it proudly displayed on the edge of our bubble. With a little examination, however, it is not quite so ridiculous after all.

Do What You Were Designed to Do

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By Aaron Carter

I chose Baylor because it had excellent programs related to my interests, an impressive employment record and a beautiful campus. I came as a business major because it seemed like the safest, most practical thing to do. But in my time here, I have learned that there is a distinct difference between being practical and being safe.

I have always been taught that the purpose of a job is to make money to provide for my family, leading to a secure, fulfilling life. The common belief is that security and fulfillment go hand-in-hand. But something tells me that security is not a way to live meaningfully. Maybe it is because I have not yet been through that “real world” experience everybody keeps talking about or maybe I am just a fool. They may be right. But I have noticed that the greatest people in history, in stories and in our lives are the ones who had “beaten the odds” or “overcome adversity.”

I think it is safe to say most would deem it wrong to admire a rich person who inherited a lot of money from a family member and did nothing with it. It seems far better to admire a person with little who became rich by long hours of toil and pain. But the most sensible thing to do is to admire the person who loves what he does no matter his financial situation—the carpenter who makes tables in his hometown is probably a happier person than most of the world’s wealthy people.

It is said that happiness is a choice. It is also said that it is easier to be happy sipping margaritas in Hawaii than it is to be scraping together money to pay the rent. That may be true for the types who are only after the margaritas. To others like me, ten years of margaritas on the beach seem quite low in comparison to a thirty or forty year long stretch of truly fulfilling work, even in the face of poverty.

If you think that you will be happier when you are safe, you are only thinking of happiness as a satisfaction of needs. It may be well and good that you are fed as much as you like and that you have a fast computer, but that life is not all that different from the life of an animal in the zoo. Having enough is not the highest mode of living. That is why you must not wall yourself in with the idea that having enough is always the best way to live. Safety is easily attainable. It only takes persistence. Happiness is much harder. It requires adaptability and courage.

It is hard not to be reminded of Luke 12:22-26 — “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

I say that if you have a passion for something, it is a good thing to have and a better thing to pursue. This does not mean that you have to be impractical about it and go do something you are not good at just because you like doing it. If you love to create but you are bad at drawing, it would be better to find another creative interest to satisfy the urge. If you like business but you are bad at math, you probably shouldn’t become an accountant.

Practicality is one thing. Safety is another. One is a state of wisdom, and the other is a state of fear. I believe that we do not actually want to be secure at all times and that we are very good at fooling ourselves into thinking we do. We all want to try dangerous things, lose track of time and come home satisfied and happy. Some of us admit it, and some of us have already scoffed loudly and turned off the computer.

When you go to do your biology lab or your foreign language assignment, ask yourself why you are doing that. If you have no answer, put the book down. Go for a walk. Learn about yourself for an hour or two. You already know where you belong. You have probably just stifled it as silly or impractical. Nonsense. Look for your place and be honest with yourself. You will find your purpose.

 

Finding Satisfaction

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By Aaron Carter

I have spent several days in the last few months feeling fully dissatisfied with how I spend my time. Usually, I can attribute this to a lack of hard work, indifference or a lack of energy, but these explanations seem unhelpful. I have worked hard. I have taxed my mind to no end on subjects in which I have no interest, late into the night and for hours at a time. I am not indifferent. My performance in classes and on projects matters very much to me. I have energy. I make sure to get plenty of sleep, and if that is not possible, I have plenty of caffeine to keep myself at work.

I do not really think that any of these are good reasons to be dissatisfied. I think the reason I get into states of dissatisfaction is not because I lack the resources to complete my work, but because I lack motivation. There is no immediately visible or physical payoff in the course of hard study. In the working world, you can usually stand back and look at something you have built or pick the vegetables that you have grown in your garden. But you cannot live in a house made of good marks or eat a high GPA with your salad.

The distinction between academic work and regular work comes in the form of reward. Payday at the end of two weeks is a certainty and feels very good all the time. Grade returns at the end of a long semester are uncertain, stressful and sometimes terrifying. This system of work and return is not designed to be rewarding. I am not sure exactly what it is designed to be like. Obviously grades are a necessary part of education. How else are we to know if we are improving or not? There is no other way that I can think of. But what exactly is the driving motivation for working hard in class? Fear of a bad grade?

Perhaps that is a good motivator for completing a class, and admittedly, it has been the only thing to get me through some of the worst ones. But I wonder if that should ever be considered a primary motivation. Personally, I think living fearfully is unhealthy and that people have a far better time being motivated by a positive reward for success than a negative punishment for failure.

When I think about all of this, I often think of my older sister who has a career of training dogs. One time, she described to me a type of training method known as “negative reinforcement training.” This is where a dog trainer makes the animal wear a  “choke-chain,” which is a particular type of collar that tightens whenever the owner or the dog tugs on it. When the dog misbehaves or performs poorly in a given task, the trainer gives the chain a sharp jerk. This is not terribly painful for the dog, but the shock of it is what causes the animal to change their behavior.

The use of a choke-chain instills a feeling of worthlessness. Even when the dog is performing perfectly, the poor creature does not feel happy. Instead, it feels anxious about doing unwell.

punk

My sister trains the dogs at her facility using a positive reinforcement training model. When her dogs do something right, she gives them a small reward. This can come in the form of a healthy treat or a few seconds with a favorite toy. Her dogs love training. They jump about and become excited whenever she comes around to teach them new tricks.

The dogs subjected to negative reinforcement rarely do any of these things. They mope about most of the time, often afraid to even look at their owners. They dread training and are susceptible to destructive tendencies such as aggression towards people or other dogs or a refusal to eat. Sometimes they behave well, but never happily.

It makes me think of my own motivation. If I am allowing myself to be motivated purely by my fear of bad grades, I am not actually allowing myself to enjoy college. I will be like the negatively reinforced dog – too worried about doing things incorrectly to do anything well. If I allow myself to be motivated by something positive, knowing that the only thing I can do is my best, I think I will find more satisfaction.