Mechanics Of Life

Way back in 2004, I presented just a few workshops on The Mechanics Of Life to small groups of less than 20 delegates (by choice for personal interaction). The 4-hour presentation was very well received. Not only did I get applause at the end of the session, but the double handshakes and a few hugs afterwards were, as far as I'm concerned, far greater reward than the combined attendance fees.

Converting the presentation to an on-screen format has proven challenging, since the live, one-on-one presentations offer opportunities to deviate slightly and deal with questions and explanations on the fly with supporting notes scribbled on the whiteboard, for instance. No whiteboard here, so what I'm able to articulate below is all there is in this static delivery.

In essence, all these observations relate to my direct experience in the professional audio recording environment, where the analogies relative to life were just too obvious for me to ignore. So while it may seem a bit technical, I hope to make the connection with your everyday human experience.

While everything that follows has a distinct recording studio reference to it, this module is based loosely on a presentation from the 80's by Gregg Braden, titled 'Zero Point'.

It was largely about the changing of frequencies in and around the cosmos, especially Earth's Schuman Cavity Resonance frequency, which was said to be changing to the point where it would have to stop and reverse itself. This included the prospect that the Earth was due to change its direction of rotation and the magnetic poles were due to reverse - as they have done many times in the past, according to scientific and geological surveys. Since biblical times, there has been talk of a time when the sun stood still and the night persisted for a long time, after which the sun rose in the west and set in the east. So this is not as left-field as you might think.

However, my take on that presentation was not so much the changing of frequencies or magnetic shifts, but more about the fact that there was a literal break in the connection between mankind and the cosmic uplink.

This concept rang a loud bell for me, because in the audio studio environment, where sound gets merged with picture for video and film productions (called Post Production or Audio Post), the issue of sync is really critical. To keep things lined up and running at the same speed to stay in sync, an industry standard called Time Code is imprinted on the respective audio and visual sources so that they can all run in sync with one another.

Sometimes there are multiple machines and devices that follow this code, which is rarely the same on each machine. To cope with this, an offset can be programmed into the controller so that the machine that's got audio set to start at, say one minute in to the reel can lock up with a picture source that only starts at three minutes in. So there is an offset of two minutes between picture and audio and yet they run in perfect sync. This is called a Time Code Offset.

It also applies to people. You can have people with completely different natures and characteristics and yet the get on like a house on fire, so to speak. Well, this is the concept of frequency offset at work. It isn't just restricted to the technical field of audiovisual production.

Now, sometimes, that sync gets lost, due to many things but mostly due to loss of the sync tone, which is usually recorded on one channel of a multitrack recorder, or may be coming from a satellite uplink which loses signal. In the audio field, we refer to it as 'dropout'. Again, this applies to humans too, because someone could he 'having a bad day' and just not be able to connect with anyone at all.

In the early days of Time Code, this loss of signal (dropout) of the code recorded onto the recording tape was a real (reel?) problem. But then some clever technicians invented a thing calle Jam-Sync. It changed things dramatically - I had opportunity to make use of it myself on several occasions.

Basically, when the code signal is lost, instead of all the machines either stopping or drifting out of sync with each other, the controller would remember the last known time reference before the signal was lost and then simply feed that last-known code to all connected machines so that they would keep running together. Hence the name: Jam-Sync, because it literally jammed the code and forced everything to follow its lead until the master signal returned.

You often see this with satellite TV reception, when a signal is lost due to atmospheric or weather conditions, the picture freezes on the last image that was received. And guess what? It happens with people as well.

So that's the basic sync connection sequence between the cosmos and humans at a cellular level. You can find online references that link the Earth's 'heartbeat' to human cellular and mental behaviour. Here are just a couple of links to get you going:

So you see here that the heart and brain are in Jam-Sync mode, having lost connection with the earth and the cosmic energies beyond. That means that, at a cellular level, humans are unaware of cosmic changes that are and have been taking place over the ages. Consequently, the brain is in control and is operating on pure logic, while the heart is at a loose end instead of in tune with the rest of the cosmos. See Figure 3 for the consequences of that.

So there you see that the importance of synchronization is not just the domain of the audio and movie industries. The human body, especially its Chakra energy fields, need to be in perfect sync too, otherwise things start to go haywire.

In the physical workshops, there is another module which demonstrates beyond any argument the importance of balancing the energies in the body and how simply fixing one does not automatically fix the others. They all have to be in tune with each other. This live module uses audio tones - an acoustic guitar, actually, to show how simply tuning one string can affect the tension (and tune) of the others. All the strings need to be adjusted to compenate for the increased or decreased tension of the one that is most out of tune. Words don't fully explain it, which is why I am not going to spend any time on it here.

The next module is called The Power Of Choice and has to do with habitual thinking - something else that prevents potential change from occurring. Let's dive right into that.

Now, the following modules come straight out of my experience in the recording studio. I found it fascinating that in just about every technological field, there is an analogy for how life works. This eventually made sense to me, because technology is a poor attempt to reflect what human nature is about. Here's what I mean:

In any situation where energy is involved, - in this case- the audio recording situation, a sound wave has a positive moment and a negative moment. It is this difference between cycles that gives a signal its amplitude - or volume. (see fig 1 below)

In fig.2 above, you'll see that if you take that same sound wave and reverse it's polarity (invert it, or put it out of phase) it becomes a reversed mirror image of fig.1 - ie: where fig 1 starts positive and then goes negative to complete its full cycle as a sound wave, fig 2 starts negative and then goes positive to complete it's full cycle as a sound wave. Now let's take a look at what happens when we mix these two sound waves together.

Although the diagram explains itself, it's worth reiterating that the two sound waves basically work against each other, causing what is known as 'phase cancellation', where the two opposite energies cancel each other out, so there is no energy to measure or to hear through the speakers. This is simple arithmetic - if you add plus one and minus one, your answer is zero, because the two opposing values cancel each other out.

When opposing energies, such as doubt, try to exist in the same space and time, they effectively cancel each other out. The sum of the two, however big and powerful they might be, ultimately cancel each other out, resulting in no energy at all.

This is what occurs when doubt or indecision enter an individual’s energy space. Much energy is poured into an outcome that has no result at all. This scientific fact is referred to as Phase Cancellation and is used successfully in the electronics industry for audio and television noise reduction applications by simply mirroring the unwanted energy against itself.

This sequence of images also explains why one feels so much lighter after revealing a secret or ethical burden. By putting the revelation ‘out there’, the original energy is neutralised because the negative secret and the positive truth cannot occupy the same reality at the same time. They simply cancel each other out. Hence the term: “The truth will set you free”.

Even in my early days, starting out as a sound engineer, it struck me that this is exactly how the power of doubt brings people to a standstill and why the people who keep changing their minds about things seem to never actually get anywhere.

When you decide to do something and then counter that intention with a doubt as to whether you can actually do it or if you're good enough to get it done or start thinking of all the things that could go wrong to stop you from getting a result, then you are basically cancelling your original intention with a string of negative considerations - doubts and fears - in exactly the same way that phase cancellation reduces a perfectly good sound wave to nothing.

I coined this phenomenon: The Power Of Doubt, because it is nothing more than the power of positive thinking that's been put in reverse to defeat itself.

You cannot go in two directions at the same time. That is just a physical fact. No energy will amount to anything as long as you keep adding a negative version of it into your 'mix' of thinking.

One of the biggest challenges for a sound engineer - especially when recording on location, where there is background noise that gets picked up by the usually very sensitive microphones, is to make sure that the recorded material is clearly heard above the background noise. This is referred, quite logically, as a signal-to-noise ratio, ie: the volume of recorded content versus the volume of the background noise. In the early days of recording, you didn't even have to be recording on location to have this problem, because the recording equipment itself often presented this challenge by way of tape hiss, circuitry noise from the mixing desk and the 'leaking' of a neighbouring channel onto another during a recording - also known as crosstalk.

Now crosstalk is yet another analogy for life, where the suggestions and interference from others can confuse or distract you from you own natural course. But more about that later - we're still dealing with the issue of ambient noise, background chatter and buzz and whatnot.

Signal to noise ratio is a perfect analogy for timid or uncertain behaviour by people in general - afraid to assert themselves in case they offend somebody or unintentionally say the wrong thing. This is a general lack of assertion - afraid to stand out and be bold. Look at the caption in Fig 1 below.

Now take a look at Fig2. The difference is evident. If these two charts were before-and-after printouts of a person's power of assertion, then the improvement would be obvious. The level of noise, or chatter, hasn't changed, but the content is bold enough to be heard clearly above it. This can also be refered to as 'standing up for yourself'.

The power of assertion is probably the single most important attribute for any individual. That's because when you can assert yourself, you are confident, clearly motivated and driven to state your positon. I didn't think to make a chart showing distortion (also known as 'clipping' or 'saturation'), where the assertion is literally over the top and loses it's clarity (fidelity). But if I did, it would be yet another illustration of how someome who is inclined to shout others down is merely overcompensating for their own lack of confidence and underlying insecurity.

Never in a million years did I ever think that working as a studio engineer and music director would give me such insight into human nature. The fact that I also worked in top ad agencies as a copywriter and gained huge market psychology experience and training made it all the easier to see the parallells in these technical observations that I am sharing with you here.

As it's name suggests, a noise gate opens and closes at selected points to literally cut out the unwanted background noise that can be heard between the actual recorded content.

In the signal to noise chart in Fig.1 above, a noise gate would be set to close at the level of the unwanted noise so that the space between the actual content is silent and doesn't contaminate the listening experience.

However, as soon as the recorded signal rises above that noise level, the gate will open and allow the bold content to come through. It will keep opening and closing to effectively block the unwanted background noise.

Yes, the noise will still be there in the background when it opens, but it will be masked or overridden by the much louder signal (assertion) to the extent that it will only be noticeable to a trained or critical ear. But, to all intents and purposes, the noise will have been removed.

This is analogous to the idea that a confident and assertive person can easily block, or ignore the background chatter of life in general to prevail and overcome distractions and the many other things that would normally irritate and discourage someone who has limited assertion.

Life is full of distractions and annoying chatter that is trying to pull you away from your preferred direction. So learning how to activate your personal noise gate will be a good place to start with cleaning up your thoughts and beliefs to be more aligned with what comes naturally to you.

Sounds like a mouthfull, I know, but sometimes it is the simplest of things that require the most explanation - usually because they are actually so simple but are percieved as being complicated and hard to get your head around.

This module comes straight out of the heart of any recording studio, the recorder itself. Whether it is an old reel-to-reel multitrack recorder or a PC based DAW (Digital Audio Workstation like ProTools or Cubase), the principle still applies, because it is universal.

With a reel to reel recorder, the playback head is the moment of present time. Whatever is on the tape reels on either side of the head can be considered to be the past and the future. Whatever is on the feeder reel that still has to pass over the playback head is analogous to the future - it has yet to happen or be experienced. What has been taken up by the appropriately named takeup reel, is analogous to the past - it has already passed over the playback head and is being stored.

Likewise for the modern PC based recording systems, the cursor that you see moving across the screen is the only point at which you actually hear what's been recorded. What's on the left of the cursor has already been heard and is analogous to the past. The recorded content on the right of the cursor is, indeed, there, but it won't be heard until the cursor moves over it. So it is only for a short instant that you actually hear or experience everything that's been recorded. The rest of it is still there, but it is either in the past or in the future. The only way you can hear or perceive the material behind or ahead of the cursor is to physically place the cursor at that point - otherwise it will remain inaudible. Ditto for everyday human life.

Due to inherent latency in the physical dimension, which creates the illusion of what we call time, there appears to be a past, a present and a future. But your conscious awareness only exists in the present. That's because the time-limited physical universe restricts the experience of infinity to a single moment of 'now'. The only opportunity you have to experience anything is in the present moment. This is your point of power, since infinity is defined as everything, all at once and in the same time. All your potential only exists in the moment of 'now'.

Here's why: from your position in the present, you recall the past and re-member - in your present moment - the experiences and emotions that you had in the past. You can only experience them if you focus your present conscious awareness on those experiences and emotions. Those experiences and emotions do not exist in the present until you fetch and bring them into the present moment through your consciousness. In this way, you pre-occupy your present reality with energy from the past, and so it becomes your current experience. Therefore, you carry that conscious state 'forward' with you as you move through time, to become your 'future' experience.

Likewise, from your position in the present, you project into the future and imagine - from your present moment - the experiences and emotions you would like to have in the future. You can only experience them if you focus your present conscious awareness on those preferred experiences and emotions. Those experiences and emotions do not exist in the present until you create and bring them into the present moment through your consciousness. In this way, you pre-occupy your present reality with the energy you imagine in the future, and so it becomes your current experience. Therefore, you carry that conscious state 'forward' with you as you move through time, to become your 'future' experience.

At no 'time' are you actually IN the past or IN the future. Whatever your conscious state, good or bad, it will become your experience. And as you continue to hold that energy state, it will become your future reality. So your future is always created in the present. The sheer simplicity of this is almost breathtaking. It is nothing more than the conscious application of the infinite potential that every human has and which only exists in the short blink of a physical moment called present time.

The skill, or art of this is learning how to maintain your preferred conscious state from one moment to the next, while external influences work diligently to drive your thinking in another direction to suit their own, vested interests. So spare a thought for what it is you're thinking. Where is your energy going? $

I appreciate that this might seem technical to some, but then, the human organic body is not exactly a stick figure in the sand either. There are many freely available diagnostic tools and technical information to troubleshoot vehicles and other devices and yet there is no freely available diagnostic information to troubleshoot the body, which just happens to be the only vehicle a human has to experience this consciousness referred to as life.