Scrabble’s Two Letter Words – Om & On

Om

Om – From the Sanskrit ओम्, often written as ॐ, om is a sacred Buddhist, Hindu, and Jainist word that’s used as a focus in meditation and prayer.

Om is the symbol that embodies the Shakti, or divine energy, and its three characteristics are creation, preservation, and liberation. Practitioners of meditation draw out the word ommmmm as a way to focus inwardly, vibrating their vocal chords and chest to a speed of 432 Hz, which is the same vibrational frequency found in all things throughout nature…

Wait a second. No. That last part must be wrong. Let’s back up a second here.

First, no two people land on the same frequency when they say ‘om’. I’m a big guy, and the pitch of my voice is different than that of a petite woman. We land on different pitches, and that’s great, because your voice is a part of your identity and adds variety to life. Even if we sat together and worked to find a pitch between us, that pitch would be manufactured, not an automatic pitch created by the Universe when a magic word is said.

Second, despite a slew of websites claiming the opposite, there appear to be very few things in our Universe that vibrate at exactly 432 Hz. No, the sun does not resonate at 432 Hz. Its dominant resonance is about 0.0033 Hz. On the opposite end of the spectrum, yellow sunlight shoots out from the sun and vibrates at an astounding five hundred trillion Hz. The human body resonates at about 5 Hz, but might be encouraged to go all the way up to 10 Hz. I could list any number of objects in our world and assign vibrational resonances to each of them, but the list would only be an approximation, and mostly wrong. Certain factors, such as the density of the object in question, humidity, and/or elevation, are all factors in what an object’s resonant frequency is. Saying that “water resonates at 432 Hz” is a little like saying “wood is 432 inches”. You’ll be right on rare occasions, but it’s a statistic without meaning. Nothing on Earth vibrates at one specific frequency, let alone 432 Hz.

Despite this, many people latch onto the idea that a pitch of 432 Hz is healing for the body. And this belief appears to originate not from practitioners of meditation, but from musicians. So in order to better understand this Eastern philosophical ideal, we need to talk about Western music theory.

Let’s say we need to tune a piano. The first thing we do is open the lid and find the middle C string toward the center. We tighten the string to sharpen the pitch and loosen the string to flatten it. And once our middle C is perfect, we can then go, string by string, tightening or loosening until each string is in a perfect pitch relationship to middle C. But how do you find the correct pitch for middle C? I can open my phone and use an app that plays middle C. Before smart phones or audio recordings existed, I could use a tuning fork set to the correct frequency. But let’s say it’s the year 1600 and the tuning fork has yet to be invented. We’re sitting in front of a harpsichord, and we need to find the correct tone for middle C. How do we do it?

We guess. If we’re lucky or rich, we could hire a professional harpsichord tuner renowned for their excellent hearing, and very accurate guesses. But their guess would be based upon what other harpsichords they listened to sound like, and minor variations would emerge every time they tuned. It would be like setting your clock based upon the time on another clock. No matter how accurate you are, if you do it one hundred times you will be far away from your initial time. Except with clocks, the sun will always be there to tell a time setter when they strayed far away from noon. There is no noon for middle C. It’s an intangible concept with a location based on the ever-changing wiles of musicians.

This changed when John Shore invented the tuning fork in 1710. Since the tuning fork produced a consistent frequency when struck, multiple musical instruments could all standardize to be ‘in tune’ with one another. In the late 19th century, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovered radio waves and proved the theory of electromagnetism. In 1935 the International Electrotechnical Commission honored Hertz by naming the new standard for frequency length after him. One Hertz is exactly one vibration per second. By 1939, the British Standards Institute selected 440 Hz to represent an A note, though to this day many orchestras pitch correct to other similar frequencies. You’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the IOS A440 and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s choice of A441. The hop to A444 that the Boston Symphony Orchestra uses is noticeable, at least to my ears, but is slight and I find it hard to imagine it having a very meaningful impact on the symphonies themselves. But I’m no conductor. Go here if you’d like to listen to the differences in pitches and judge for yourself. Be careful not to blast your speakers.

It’s difficult to pin down where the movement to A432 begins, but I think Patrick Bernard, the new-age composer, and his book “The Secret Music of the Soul”, printed in 1991, might be the key. In it, Bernard professes that he is “always trying to find new arrangements to better express the energy of the SPIRITUAL SOUND VIBRATIONS.” Bernard probably isn’t the first person to latch onto 432; it’s a magical number for many reasons. It can be created using four sequential prime numbers (101+103+109+113), or by multiplying 4 x 9 x 12. An equilateral triangle whose area and perimeter are equal has the area of the square root of 432. There’s a long tradition of people seeking spirituality with the Universe through numerology, and 432 is a number that feels good.

Some musicians will argue that tuning to A432 also feels good, because the vibrational frequency is resting on a number with multiple perfect divisions. This breaks down when we question what there are 432 divisions of. Unlike, say, the golden ratio where the magic numbers are in a relationship with each other, 432 Hz is 432 vibrations per second. And the second is a human invention; it isn’t found in nature. In theory, there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year… if you don’t count leap years, which add an additional day every four years full of a bonus 86,400 seconds. Many years contain a leap second to make up for time lost as the Earth orbits the Sun in a way that doesn’t divide perfectly into our calendar of days and months. And the Earth is not moving at a constant speed. It may, in fact, be temporarily speeding up, which might result in us adding a negative leap second. Our world is not in perfect synchronicity with the Universe. Tidal patterns, atmospheric changes, and the sloshing around of Earth’s molten core are all minor events in comparison with our gravitational orbit with the Sun, but the end result is an unpredictable wobble. That makes the concept of a second a fuzzy thing, and to bank on the idea that dividing that second into 432 vibrations as opposed to 440 vibrations is somehow meaningful, based on the mathematics alone, is a flawed thought.

That’s not to say that A432 might not be more pleasing to your ear, or that there’s anything wrong with spiritualism, meditation, or focusing on the word ‘om’ to center oneself. But we don’t need to invent bogus reasons as to why omming works. Taking the time to focus on feeling vibrations through the chest is soothing. It causes the blood vessels to dilate, and encourages the brain to release endorphins that make us feel good. It’s not magic, but it can feel like magic. That may not be as satisfying an answer for some brains, but knowing better doesn’t make meditation any less powerful.

On

On – Above, covering, activated, among, towards, and/or a part of. You’d think that would be enough, but it doesn’t scratch the surface of the fifty-five definitions for a word you already knew. Don’t at me. You should have done that when I was defining ‘at’. At-ing me now would be totally not on.

Let’s see what the other definitions include… ready to perform, on base in a game of baseball, challenge accepted, menstruating, under the influence… I could go on. There are a number of prepositional phrases where it’s assumed the listener knows what the speaker is saying, so the phrase is pared down to just the preposition ‘on’, either as a shorthand, or to prevent from saying something taboo or embarrassing. We don’t need to say that Tito is a stooge and is on the dole. We can say he’s on. For those in the know, that’ll do.

I’m doing my best to not imitate Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes (“Have you ever wondered what happens when you log on? What are you on top of, and why did you need to log it?”) So let’s focus on one definition. I want to talk about when a performer is on. What happens? Does a switch get flipped and the performer becomes another person? Because it sure seems that way some times.

Speaking as someone who’s used to being on stage and working with others on stage, I know my personality shifts some when I’m on. I’d like to believe it’s because I’m taking into consideration who my audience is. That I’m changing the way I act and talk so as to be understood by the greatest number of people simultaneously. But if that’s what I’m doing, it’s not a conscious choice. And I don’t need a stage for it to happen, either. If you put me in front of a microphone for a podcast, or have me address a party full of guests, my mannerisms are altered in ways I don’t remember choosing.

I invite random friends to jump in front of a three camera studio setup with me to review their favorite movies on my show Popcorn Roulette, so I get an up close chance to see this change in others. But not with everybody. With some people, they don’t turn on. They instead begin the process of systematically freaking out. What they are experiencing is performance anxiety, but it’s more colloquially referred to as ‘stage fright’.

There’s tremendous value in having the skill to address an audience, but evolution spent millions of years teaching mammals that when you are the focus of attention, you are the meal. Cameras aren’t alive, but their large, dark, glass eyes represent thousands of people scrutinizing every choice you make. In response to this threat, the amygdala fires off in the brain, sending a signal through the automatic nerves, down to the kidneys to start pumping adrenaline into the body. That adrenaline is great… if you want to pick up the podium, hurl it at the camera, then run out of the studio. It’s not terribly conducive to having a fun and engaging conversation about Lilo & Stitch.

So, if panic bad, how not? Avoidance is the common solution. Simply don’t put yourself in a position where stage fright comes up. Don’t lead groups at work. Don’t make your own podcast. Don’t teach your friends a new game. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. In theory, this works, but it works poorly. Not only have you locked yourself out of a great number of experiences, you set the bar incredibly low for what makes you uncomfortable. At some point, you need to address people or lose out. So we might as well learn how not to lose.

The next approach many people try is to will themselves not to be scared. That’s… also not a good working plan. You can feel fine up until the moment all eyes turn on you, then suddenly the lizard part of your brain smacks a beat into the back of your head and it’s party time in lizard city. This method probably makes you more prone to panic, because you didn’t take the potential reaction seriously, so you’re not prepared for the consequences.

According to Dr. Anwashee Banjeree’s Ted Talk, “the only way to thwart negative reinforcement is to actually be in the presence of the stimuli as much as we can.” “Speak often. And more importantly, speak in front of a large variety of crowds. Don’t get over it. Get used it.”

If you want to beat stage fright, you need to habitualize it. You need to put ourselves out there so often that the patterns in your brain settle into the base, the basal ganglia, where we store all the ‘brushing our teeth’ and ‘how to talk with a phone to one ear’ activities. And the only way to do that is through practice. Practice talking in front of a mirror or while driving your car. Practice reading a speech in front of a friend that you trust. Practice telling a story at dinner. Practice walking into a diner and asking if someone dropped their hat. The hat can be yours. It’ll be our secret.

Raise your hand and ask a question. Interrupt the tour guide. Offer to be a tour guide. Go to karaoke night. Then go again, but this time say a few words before you sing your song. If you keep putting yourself in that horrible, frightening situation, it cannot conquer you. You will never stop getting that adrenaline rush when you hop on a stage, but at some point it won’t be terrifying anymore. It will be fun.