Uncle Thor's Lessons, Anecdotes and Humor

Robots are fascinating characters. There were robots that looked a bit like cowboys in the 1935 Gene Autry movie about mysterious Thunder Riders, “The Phantom Empire”. One of the first famous robots was Robbie from the classic movie “Forbidden Planet.” Robbie variants showed up in several movies and television shows. The last of the Robbie-inspired characters was the robot in the television series “Lost in Space.” From there, the mechanical men of science fiction headed in other directions. They became more like humans. Examples are DATA from the Star Trek Next Generation series and the “AIs” of the short-lived series “Space: Above and Beyond.”

The reality is very different. The robotic paint machines used in the automotive assembly industry are little more than mechanical arms fitted with air brushes. Robots used by police and military bomb squads are more like radio-controlled toy tanks. The undersea exploration robots used by oceanographers are like little rafts fitted with arms, lights and a camera. They are very different from the mechanical men of Science Fiction.

Recently, attempts have been made to produce a human-like robot that walks and talks. These are novelties. They are impractical but entertaining.

Technology may one day produce a human-like robot. There will be a time when technology has been successfully miniaturized to the point that a robot can be fitted with enough gyroscopes and motors to realistically imitate human motion. It may also be programmed and outfitted to avoid obstacles, recognize certain features and react accordingly. There will likely be a point where robots can be fitted with facial-recognition software, for instance, and then be programmed to greet those it “knows.”

Robots will attain the semblance of consciousness. They can be programmed to simulate consciousness. For instance, there will likely be a point where facial recognition software not only recognizes faces, but a general set of facial expressions. One might then be able to program a robot to respond differently according to the specific expression. The robot would not know the emotions or moods. It would merely be following its programming.

Think of it as the difference between having consciousness and being about consciousness. It is not the thing. It is about the thing, just as a book about the sea is not the sea itself. It is about the sea and the two will never be the same. So the robot mind might seem to be about consciousness, but it will never actually be consciousness.

Will robots be self-aware? Not exactly. A robot can be made aware of itself, its surroundings and its functions. Programming for this awareness would have the purpose of letting the robot maintain itself. However, it would not be the self-awareness of consciousness. What looks like awareness would again be the robot’s programming.

The idea of an artificial man has fascinated humankind for ages. Norse tradition has “Mist-calf”, an earthen man created by the giant Hrungnir to assist him in fighting the God Thor. Mist-calf is so afraid of Thor that he wets himself when the God arrives. In effect, Mist-calf is the artificial thing, the replica, being confronted by the real thing. As in real life, the replica can never stand up to the standard set by the real thing. Its unreal quality will be exposed.

There is an unconscious urge to give consciousness to the artificial man. The android robot of science fiction and a cute tale like the puppet Pinocchio revolve around an artificial man with a human soul. Perhaps this fascination is related to the childhood tendency to treat one’s favorite doll or teddy bear as a real companion. Maybe it is the unconscious desire to see an idol come to life and respond as the God it represents. Even better, maybe to see the God come to take the place of the idol. We can leave this argument for the anthropologists and psychologists to finish.

The likely future of what we call robots is not going to be as colorful or interesting as the mechanical characters of science fiction. A robotic navigator will be an electronic bundle that fits in a small box that is a component of the directional mechanism of a vehicle. Currently, the most mobile robots are not much more than radio-controlled vehicles to send into places where man cannot or should not go. Robots will be uninteresting devices that perform rather mundane tasks.

Like Mist-calf, the artificial will not measure up to the real human. Robots may assist us, but they can never replace us.

*****

Cyborgs are humans who have been fitted with robotic parts. In effect, they are a blend of robotic and human components. Two popular television series of the 1970s focused on individuals who gained great powers by having their damaged body parts replaced by robotic ones. Called “bionics,” these fictional replacement parts were better than the human parts they replaced.

Cyborgs exist today. There are people fitted with mechanical parts to replace damaged ones. Unlike the fictional bionically enhanced people, the current parts are nowhere near as versatile as those they replaced. Amputees have been fitted with better and better mechanical arms and legs. Other machines are being developed to take over the functions of damaged organs. There will come a time when a severely injured individual can be fitted into a mechanical body that replaces most of his normal functions. There may even come strange cultures which encourage healthy people to get robotic enhancements. After all, look at the people who get cosmetic enhancements today. One might conjecture that the same personality types wouldopt for robotic enhancements when they become available in the future.

A science-fiction game known as Warhammer 40,000 has a fictional species called Necrons. These are beings whose consciousness and non-physical self has been fitted with a robotic body. They are each a robot inhabited and controlled by a living consciousness. That may seem strange, but there is a common belief that our bodies are just the forms we inhabit so that we can live on this world. According to this idea, our bodies are vehicles which we ride. Would that make the human body a growing, living robot inhabited by an intelligent spirit? It is something to ponder.

Science deals with objective phenomena through what are called quantitative means. In other words, it uses measurements and calculations to arrive at its conclusions. Part of scientific research revolves around causality. It asks: what action or thing begins a process? What causes a thing to be? What starts a process into motion?

Science is not absolute. There are things that can be considered acausal, or having no identifiable cause. They cannot be proven. Most scientists would avoid such things because they defy proof.

Nonetheless, something must be at work. Carl Jung made a study of coincidental phenomenon. These were mostly acausal. Jung looked into J. B. Rhine’s ESP experiments, astrology and other coincidences. The results were surprising. The results did not fit the expected odds. While none of these were 100%, the percentage of their occurrence was significantly higher than the odds might suggest. Jung used scientific means to examine these coincidences. Coincidence? Obviously not.

How can a person have a dream one day, in one place, that comes true in another place that he had never visited before?

How can a person predict a sequence of the random drawing of cards that will not happen for another two weeks?

How can a person draw random cards or chips, and from them accurately predict an event that may happen days in advance and many miles away?

Jung could not explain how these things worked. He could only record that they worked with greater frequency than random odds would suggest. Jung called his theory synchronicity.

The intriguing thing about synchronicity is another famous scientist’s input. Jung got the idea to explore synchronicity after discussing relativity with Albert Einstein. Jung and Einstein wondered if relativity also worked within the human psyche.

There are physicists who deride the subjective realm. For instance, a physicist named Brian Cox referred to astrology as “rubbish.” Though Jung’s analysis of astrology did not validate it as a reliable system of divination, it did reveal some coincidental findings. Many or even most of the premises of astrology may be flawed, insofar as a system of divination, but there are aspects of it that are worthy of further investigation. Jung wondered if certain astrological events might not coincide with astronomical phenomena, such as increased bursts of solar energy that affect Earth.

Anyone who has had a prophetic dream, encountered an omen that proved true or had a Rune or Tarot reading become a reality knows that there is something at work. There is some thing that transcends the limitations of time and space. Is it a being of some sort? I doubt it. I think it must be some kind of principle which we have yet to pin down. The fact is that there is a process or principle behind miracles.

When it comes to the miraculous and unexplainable, science is a latecomer. Oracles, prophets and divination are ancient institutions. Among the better-known examples are the Oracle at Delphi and the volva of ancient Norway. The realm of the wondrous is no stranger to us! We know that our material world is also a spiritual world. The two are not separate. They are halves of the one thing. It is obvious that there are things other than physics and chemistry that shape our human experience.

I just posted two new videos:

The first explains why I wrote heathenism for thinkers and whta it means ot take a rational approach to heathen belief:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA_sq6HBUeE

The second one is a discourse on the duality of mind and heart, objective and subjective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO_MZz6mTiQ

Here is a link to get Heathenism for Thinkers, Heathenism for Adults, and sales on many of our other books on Runes, Tradition ,etc.

http://www.thortrains.net/trollwisepress/specials07.htm

Enjoy!

Uncle Thor

The Mannar Rune is a paradox: a reconciler of opposites. Its most basic question is a matter of identity. In effect, it reconciles the things that a person is and does with who he is. A person may be defined by his age, ethnicity, gender, occupation or activity. At the same time, there is that subjective side of moods, emotions, beliefs, attitudes and proclivities that go beyond the “what” to the “who.”

“As above, so below. As within, so without,” goes the Hermetic adage. It could also have been written about Mannar. In the world beyond the individual, there is the paradox of the subjective and objective: the world of intellect and the underworld of emotion. We see that which can be measured as quantity contrasted to quality, which cannot be measured by mere numerical amounts. There are reciprocals such as reason and mood, intellect and intuition, and mathematics and poetry. Science sits at one hand while philosophy sits at the other.

Ideally, the two sides are not opposed to one another. They are not opposing ideas, but the opposite halves of a single thing. Men and women are both the “what” and the “who.” Intellect is only part of the mind, the other part being emotion. The objective does not exist without the subjective. Questions about Life are as much science and they are philosophy.

Mind without heart leads to brutality. Heart without mind leads to stupidity. The mind without heart can be cold, callous and calculating. The heart can be moody, effervescent and unreasonable. Mind with heart is considerate, careful and beneficial.

The spiritual and material worlds are not separate. They are parts of the same world. Matter and spirit are not opposed to one another. They are only opposites in the mind. In reality, the presence of one is the presence of the other. As with the other paradoxes, what seems to be two things is really just one.

The paradox duality is best described as polarity. There is a single thing. The supposed opposites are each strongest on their respective poles. Imagine a bar, and the two ends are the opposing poles. No matter how extreme they may be, they are still part of the same bar. Were they adversarial, the bar would have dissolved. In reality, they are opposites but not opponents. They represent opposite halves of the same thing.

And that is the true lesson of the Mannar Rune. Two are actually halves of one.

A common expression comes from a quote from Shakespeare: “The lady protesteth too much.” There are many occasions where certain individuals like to make the same statement time and time again. Yet if they feel they must repeat their claims often, it is frequently the case that the opposite is true. Here are some things I learned a long time ago:

The one who always says, “You can trust me” is the person who will betray you.

The one who always tells you “I am your friend” is not your friend at all.

The one who always says, “I am looking out for your best interests” is looking for anything but your well-being.

The one who always says, “You can confide in me” is the one who will broadcast your confidence far and wide.

The person who always says, “I always tell the truth” is a liar.

The untrustworthy person has the curse of being unable to trust anyone else. The one time he decides to trust someone, it will be someone who will betray him. That person will be more untrustworthy than himself.

The false friend can never rely on the friendship of someone else. The one time he does trust the friendship of another, he will invariably befriend someone who is a more false friend than himself.

The person who betrays the confidence of others will never be able to confide in someone else. The one time he decides to trust someone to keep his secrets, that person will be a bigger blabbermouth than he is. His secrets will be common knowledge in a New York minute.

The liar can never believe anyone else. When he does choose to believe someone, it will turn out to be a bigger liar than himself.

Believe the person who always does what he says he will do.

Trust your secrets to the person who can keep his mouth shut.

Befriend the person who is still there when troubles come. Sunny day friends are just acquaintances. Rainy day friends are genuine friends.

Do what you say, keep your friends’ secrets and be a friend in bad times as well as good ones. Save your best for friends and family.

Never treat a friend less than you would treat a stranger.

*********

The Book of Job in the Hebrew scriptures was edited to fit the monotheistic beliefs. It is not hard to see that it is actually a very Pagan comedy. The God and the Adversary are more like members of a pantheon. They would correspond to Odin or Tyr as the God, and Loki as the Adversary. The whole story is a game where a fellow named Job is a pawn in a divine pissing match. All of the woes that befall Job are exaggerated things that make the story more amusing in the telling.

There is one part of the story that is based on fact. Job’s friends turn against him when times get tough. They give him stupid advice and then berate him, even though he is not at fault. Believe me, that kind of thing happens a lot. Once trouble sets in, one can be very surprised to find how many of his friends are harshly critical. Adding insult to injury, they offer bad advice and then get angry if the poor friend does not take it.

There are exceptions. These are the very few friends who stick by and who do not criticize. They will offer opinions, perhaps. Their opinions will not be disapproving, critical or demeaning. These are the friends you want to keep. You are better off dropping the others who blame you and make you feel bad about it.

I know. It happened to me during some hard times many years ago. The upshot was that when all was over, I was left with the people who were genuine friends. That contributed greatly to the quality of my life. The sunny day friends were not even missed.

(Please note: this is a horror story I witnessed myself. If you think zombies and vampires and alien invasions are frightening stories, you have seen nothing like the horror that started in the early 1980s. Suffice to say that nobody deserves to be afflicted with this horror. I am posting it tonight because it is the right time to tell what I saw and what it did to some folks I knew. I may have been relatively exempt from the horror myself, but people I knew were right in its path.)

Back around 1983 and 1984, word got around about a new disease. It was called AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The marker for AIDS infection was the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, a.k.a. HIV. AIDS was scary. Scientists knew it was a blood disease but they were unsure how it could be transmitted. A big fear centered around the possibility that mosquitoes could spread it. There were cases where it may have been transmitted through transfusions with infected blood. Getting to the bottom of it took time.

I had been working with substance abusers in those days. Eventually, word came that AIDS was prevalent among intravenous drug users and gay men. That was the semi-official stand. About that time, a friend of mine discovered he had HIV and went to a support group sponsored at a local hospital. He was a former heroin addict and gay. As he said himself, he could have gotten it one way or the other or another. The man went to a meeting at the hospital and told us that most of the people there were neither gay nor needle users. They had gotten it accidentally, through transfusions or accidents.

By that time there was already a stigma about AIDS. An incident related to the stigma still pisses me off. I had brought someone to a meeting of one of the 12-Step recovery groups. He was seeking help for a substance abuse problem. It was in my neighborhood and I knew a few people there. A woman brought in a former drinking buddy of mine. He had moved on to hard drugs back in the bad old days. A result was a case of AIDS. He got off the drugs and found out that he had the disease.

Tim saw me and sat beside me. He was shaky. I’ve seen it before. Sometimes when folks are going to make the jump across Bifrost, they make the rounds one last time. The man was scared. He could hardly sit up. Tim leaned up against me like he was holding on for dear life. After the meeting, the woman came to get him. I helped him up and walked him to her car. Then I went back to the room because I wanted to introduce the new fellow to some of the people.

One of the people, Gene, said to me, “How could you let him lean on you like that with the AIDS stuff.” This particular individual used to party with Tim back in the bad old days. “How could I not, ” I replied. “He’s my friend and he’s scared.” Gene did not get the point. He acted as if Tim had the cooties or something. I wanted to punch Gene with all my might..

Tim died three days later.

There was a guy named Joe who had a friend who was hospitalized with AIDS. The man could hardly breathe. AIDS kills in increments. AIDS is like committing murder with a rubber razor. Joe tried to get the man’s family to help. They would not even come to see him. There is that stigma again. Of course, after Joe’s friend died, the family threw a lavish funeral…and Joe was not invited to attend the wake or funeral. I never knew how his friend caught the disease, but it certainly put a strange light on things that his family had nothing to do with him until he was dead.

I remember one fellow we didn’t like very much. He complained that his wife left him. She left him because he gave her HIV. The man had gotten off drugs and was free of the disease. Then he decided to cheat with a woman who was an occasional needle user. She gave him the disease. I cannot even imagine the horror his wife felt, not to mention the betrayal.

My friend Eddie was a former heroin addict who I met when I worked in a rehab. Eddie got off drugs only to find he had AIDS. He fell apart a piece at a time. Simple medical things were a huge hassle. He had to go all the way to Newark to a hospital that specialized in simple medical and dental care for AIDS sufferers. Ed said he did not want to be a power of example or a hero for staying off drugs while falling apart from AIDS. He was just a regular fellow, and that is how he died. I heard about it from a message left on the machine, a couple weeks after he passed. They found him dead in a dumpster shot to death. I am certain Eddie found someone to give him the “.45 caliber solution” once his disease became unbearable. Euthanasia by bullet is not unheard of in some places.

All these years later, I have to wonder what it was really all about. Many people are alive today because of the new drugs for HIV. The same folks would have been long dead back in the early days of the epidemic. Being as I am straight and never having done needle drugs, it would seem as if the disease would never get near me. It didn’t. It got to people who were near me. AIDS hit friends and friends of friends. I was working with substance abusers. How many times we helped them get off the dope, and then found out they had the disease. And so many of them stayed off the dope in spite of AIDS. How many times did we get to know them, get to like them and then they were gone.

I had considered taking Tai Chi lessons back in `85. I went to a school of the art in the next town. It was run by a husband and wife. He was occidental, she was oriental. They gave me tea and discussed the Taoist philosophy of Yin and Yang. I didn’t let on that I was quite familiar with Taoist thought.

In the course of their discourse, the wife explained that Yin and Yang were seeking to restore balance. She explained that AIDS was caused by an imbalance of too many gays and too many junkies. Yin and Yang were restoring balance by killing them, so she said. I knew right then and there that I would not join that school! Yin and Yang had nothing to do with AIDS.

That was the mentality of many people, once folks noticed AIDS was hitting the needle users and gays hardest. “Fags and junkies” is what they said. Some seemed smugly pleased that the ailment was killing addicts and gay men. They forgot folks who got the disease by accident. They also forgot that the people they called “fags and junkies” were people with families and friends who loved them.

Society flinched again. Society figured that since it only happened to people who were in the shadows, it could sit back and leave things alone. Society forgot that these people were not some alien species living on an isolated island in the South Pacific. They were part of society. They worked among the rest of us. They were our neighbors and relatives and co-workers. They were people with mothers and fathers, siblings and mates and children. AIDS was not going to stay confined to one space. It jumped into the rest of society and infected folks who were neither needle junkies nor gay men.

Society may not have been able to cure AIDS, but it could have helped contain it.

This is not the first time society flinched. Back in the 1950s, heroin use was growing in some neighborhoods. Back then, its use was limited to musicians and poor neighborhoods, especially poor black neighborhoods. The powers that could have made a difference chose to do nothing. They felt that since it was only blacks and “bohemians”, there was no real problem. As with AIDS a few decades later, they forgot that black people were part of society. They were neighbors and co-workers, team mates and friends. They were the guy who sat in the seat ahead of you in civics class. They were the man on the next stool in the diner who laughed with you about last night’s ball game. We know what happened to heroin. It is out there raging and destroying lives among all of society. Junkies range from street people to suburban housewives. The problem only got worse.

Learn the lesson. When a problem arises, move on it. You cannot afford to ignore a problem because it is unpopular. Problems are like enemy troops. If you hit them before they get situated, you can scatter them easily. Once they dig in and get emplaced, you are going to have a tough time uprooting them and driving them out. Do not let prejudice or smug complacency delay you in taking action.

AIDS and heroin have one thing in common: nobody deserves to die that way. Both could have been contained and minimized except that by the time society moved, the cat was out of the bag. It is another case when the biases of the day lead to widespread disaster.

When I remember those days and the friends who passed, I realize that having a heart condition is not quite so bad. My heart problem can be managed. For folks who got HIV things were far worse that anything I have ever endured.

(I figured this article was due, since we have so many young people who grew up in a world where AIDS and HIV were part of the way things are. Anyone under 35 would have not been old enough to remember when the disease was a new and scary thing. Believe me, this diseased terrified a lot of people. Before the medical profession knew exactly how it was transmitted, we were scared for ourselves. Once they determined that many of us were not in the high priority groups, we were scared for people we knew. Back then, there was no cure or no way to arrest its progress. For a person diagnosed with HIV, it was just a matter of time.)

Some years ago, scientists created a fictional, two-dimensional species for thought experiments. In other words, they used a two-dimensional world to help anticipate and then solve problems. It was an interesting idea. I played around with it for a while and found it to be challenging. How easily those of us living in our world can forget the limitations of a two-dimensional place.

One of my own little mind games is out of science fiction. Basically, it involves various species who come into contact on a fictional terra-formed asteroid in some far-off galaxy. The main species are humanoids and intelligent, bipedal canines, felines, reptilians and amphibians. We know how varied that humanity itself is. The diversity of cultures with their respective religions, political systems and cultures is daunting. Add such issues as racial characteristics and genetics and the immensity is huge. Now add the instinctual inclinations of various species.

For instance, look at social structure. Dogs and wolves are pack animals. What if a pack animal evolved into an intelligent, bipedal creature? They might be a species which prefers large groups with a well-defined hierarchy. Cats tend to be solitary animals, though they often converge in small, loose groups. A feline society might prefer small groups of two to three individuals over crowds. Indeed, there are exceptions to these generalities. Foxes and coyotes tend to be solitary creatures. Lions favor groups known as prides. That is why this is just a mental exercise and a game.

How would an evolved feline society behave? I pondered the idea of it being matriarchal. While I was considering how it might work, I learned of a matriarchal society in China. An intriguing part of this is that the families are centered around the grandmother. A man and his mate do not live together. Each lives with his and her own family. The father is not involved all that much with his children. They are raised by the mother’s relatives. The male parental role is handled by the child’s maternal uncles. The father does not interfere because that culture believes that it would infringe on the place of the uncles.

This culture still exists in China.

As part of the exercise, I imagine how it might look to an impartial observer. Imagine a nondescript alien from a very different society than ours. How might we look to him, compared to the other species? One thing became clear is a pair of traits which might set us apart. First, humans can cooperate. Humans can work together, even when there is a language and culture barrier. No matter how different they may be, people can work together, especially in an emergency. I doubt any other species would match that tendency of ours.

The other thing is that humans can adapt. We can adjust the way we do things to suit the conditions we may face. Other species tend to take a while adapting. We do it almost as second nature.

Humans can cooperate. Humans can adapt. As much as we squabble, we even do that in a cooperative fashion. From team sports to war, humans can cooperate against other humans. We adapt very well. It is something to consider.

Keep in mind that this exercise is more a game than any real science. It is one of several ways to observe our own human condition by contrast to something that is not quite human.

Of all the species in the world, our abilities to cooperate and adapt exceed that of any other life form on the planet.

***

Michio Kaku, a famed professor of physics, said that the chance events leading to our own planet and life is about the same as the chance of a tornado hitting a junkyard and in its wake leaving a fully-built Boeing 747 jet. It should be noted that Dr. Kaku has the rare talent of explaining the most obtuse scientific concepts to the most unscientific layman. He is often involved in shows on the Science Channel.

It seems that wherever we turn these days, we are bombarded by a host of advertisements and messages. Open a news web page and there are a slew of ads, some of which kick off merely by passing the mouse too close to them. Go the get the day’s mail and one finds more brochures and other ads than letters. Television and radio are interspersed with block of ads. All of these ads and messages make me think of the thousand-headed Giant. Each head is yelling “Listen to me! Me! Me! Not them…Me!”

Cacaphony! Maniacal babble!

We are bombarded by the voices and words of those who want to influence us to do something. Maybe it is to buy their product, try their service, support their ideals or vote for their candidate. Do you ever wonder if what they are trying to sell us is something we do not need? I feel that way. I do not have a video game hooked up to my TV. The only cell phone in the house is my wife’s. So many things that are hyped in advertisements have no place here.

You have to challenge those messages. There are easy ways to do it. When confronted with a product, service, or even a candidate, ask yourself: “What will this do for me? Aside from costing me money (or a vote), what difference does it make in my life? ”

If you ask these questions, you may be surprised how often the answer is “Nothing,” or “Not much at all.”

When you see the price of a thing, as well as other conditions it might impose on you, ask the three magic words: “Is it worth it?”

You would be surprised how often those three words will keep you from a foolish expenditure. They can also prevent you from doing something incredibly stupid.

Finally, use the “14-pund rule.” My wife and I have used this rule for many years. It has saved us a lot of money, not to mention aggravation and buyer’s remorse. The rule works this way: if you have any doubt about purchasing an item, especially if it is an impulse buy, give it the 14 pound test. Does this item have all the impact of the 14-pound maul landing on the bridge of your nose? If it doesn’t hit you right in the middle of the forehead, then you do not need it. No sale!

What will this do for me?

Is it worth it?

Does it have all the impact of a 14 pound maul?

Three questions will save you money ,keep you from making questionable purchases and prevent buyer’s remorse.

It really is that easy!

The planets are quite visible in the sky this week If I look to the East, I see Mars, all red and nasty. To the West I see Jupiter and Venus shining brightly. They are very close to each other. They call it a “conjunction.” Audrey and I enjoy these things.

We thought it amusing tonight, when we looked at the sky, that the light from those planets took time to reach us. The light from Mars took ten minutes to get here. The light from Venus took three minutes, and Jupiter was forty minutes away. In other words, we did not see the planets as they are. We saw where they were ten, three and forty minutes previously.

Though Jupiter looks close to Venus, it is actually very distant. Jupiter is also massive in size compared to Venus, so it does not look quite as distant.

To look at those planets is to be connected with the very instant when reflected sunlight bounced from their surfaces to our eyes. In effect, we folded time and space because we had a direct link to a distant place and the recent past. Had we looked at a galaxy we would have seen light emitted centuries ago at distances too far for us to comprehend except abstractly. Seeing the galaxy immediately puts us in contact with an event that occurred in the distant past at an enormous spatial distance. That light may have left that galaxy thousands of years ago. It may have been emitted when people on this planet were just starting to work with metal. That is several thousand years! Nonetheless, seeing that galaxy is a direct connection to that time. We are experiencing the result of something that happened in that distant place so very long ago.

Think of it in terms of navigation. Sailors using the stars to navigate are able to plot their course because of something that happened at an unimaginable distance in both time and space.

Science fiction talks of folding time and space so as to travel distances that would otherwise be unattainable. No object can move faster than the speed of light. Folding space-time is considered a way to circumvent the light-speed limitation. The science fiction tale “Dune” by Frank Herbert talked of mutated beings using a substance to fold time and space. The movie “Event Horizon” told of doing the same thing with an anti-matter drive of some sort. That is all science fiction and as things stand, it makes for a good story. Yet when you look at distant stars, you are actually folding time and space in your own experience. You experience an incident that happened tremendously far away and immensely long ago. You connect with that time and space, and in a way, the distance of years and miles evaporates for just that moment.

Charged atoms that have an extra proton or an extra electron are called ions. If the atom with an extra proton meets one with the extra electron, they can bond. The secondary result of bonding is that the newly-created molecule is more stable than the atoms which created it.

Covalent bonding is different. An example is when two hydrogen atoms combine. The result gives their electrons more room to move. It increases their wavelength, which means their frequency decreases. This makes them more stable. The whole reason for covalent bonding is that less stable atoms can become more stable
molecules.

Stability is an aspect of strength and so is an Urus Rune thing. Something that is stable tends to resist chaos. It is difficult or even impossible to upset.

The interesting thing about ionic bonding is that the process is pure Gyfu. There is an exchange of two things by which a third state is created. The third state just happens to be an Urus thing.

We know our own human tendency to seek stability, especially in a changing world. The word that makes us worry is instability. Something that is unstable is cause for concern, be it an unstable bridge, an unstable economy or an unstable individual. Ages of human experience has shown that when a thing is unstable, it can easily become dangerous. Unstable bridges collapse and unstable economies can lead to poverty. Unstable individuals can go through your life like a tornado. Our instincts crave enough stability to allow us to proceed comfortably.

Obviously, this tendency toward greater stability is not just a human thing.
Does stability require ceding a degree of independence? No! Real independence has to be built on a stable foundation. Independence must rest on strength. Strength means stability. Would you consider an unstable person independent? The colloquial term “loose cannon” is more likely when it comes to those whose mind, emotions and living situation is unstable. Chaos is not independence.

We see it in atoms and molecules; we see it in human nature. Stability is a desirable state. The Urus Rune principle is evident, even when it takes Gyfu to get there.