War, Resistance, and Other Things

Berkeley, Monday, July 20, 2026 9:58 PM

The first part of the title is because after reading the news for a few days in a row, it is hard to see how the country is at war, but it does not necessarily fully feels like, except of course for the prices… There is noise on the other side of the wall, or from somewhere coming from the window. It becomes distracting for keeping the thoughts straight. And, likely I’ve learned to do the same but at different times. I would listen news or a book, somewhen between 7 am until 11 pm, if I am at home. Although, we received at email requesting quiet hours between 8 am until 10 pm. It make sense the upper end. Not necessarily the lower. But, regardless, not sure if it will be observed. I should be preparing the bed, and darkening the room, and doing the evening reading regardless. But I will talk about this later.

I was saying that unless one checks some of the news, which is even hard to know what happens on the ground. It does not necessarily feel that we are at war. Or unless that one is politician or academic on the topic. Some things become distant and we continue the narrative from the ground narrative which we read. But yes, we, or I, should be more active on catching up with some details of what is happening at the Straight of Hormuz, Iran, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait. Also, what is the situation at Yemen, at the Bab al-Mandab Strait, with the Houthis. [I tapped my mouse more than twice on the table. It made the volume increase… But it is what it is.] Something happened as well in Jordan. Plus, the ongoing things at Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Russia.

We talked more, might be about the world cup, which even in the United States, which is big, might have been mainly watched from home, same as throughout the world.

I am pondering my attention, and connection with a few topics. Despite that of course time is not unlimited. [Of course, back to the noise thing. I, of course, with the strokes, on the keyboard, also generate noise. So, folks could complain about that. Always, the goal to remember is that better to complain directly to the person, but there is also a limit for that].

I was reading that Steinbeck wrote two pages of letter to his editor, on a likely daily basis, while writing his book East of Eden. The writing of the letters was an update and a warm up process.

I did not watch much of the world cup final, but I watched several minutes and key moments, and read somethings about it. The day before the was a heavy rain, which cleared the air pollution produced by the wildfire smoke.

But it would be good to ask if that smoke in the prior days conditioned in any way the physical aspect of the Argentinian players, which understandable were tired by the final match, or have ran much more during the tournament than the Argentinian players.

Too noisy now.

It worsened by 2023. But it was already with some of this in 2020/2021, when I talked about.

Well, yesterday, I did laundry, and progress with organizing my place.

But I also fell asleep, with one of the windows, with the curtains open, where the street light infiltrates. That one is not as bad as the flood light on the front. On the front window, I closed the curtains, but I did not set up all the layers that I usually place. I fell asleep with pile of clothes still to organize laying on the bed.

Now, there is some guitar music next door. That is beautiful and great. Just the tv is the thing to be careful about. Might be because while watching tv, we do not produce much. Although, some of the war news and world cup news, might come from tv.

Tv might not be that bad. Although, thankfully I do not have one. I am curious actually to watch the Odyssey film on one of the following days.

In terms of resistance. Although it is good to speak up, and one should. Formation, growth, etc. [3 oz of a beer is in]. Losing is part of life. Wining might happen a few times, and it is not all about wining but about growing, doing the Lord’s will, contributing. If it were about securing or wining, people would not die for the faith.

But the eagerness to win is key as well. No one play to loose. Si no esperas vencer, ya estas vencido.

Young birds now are starting to sit at one of the branches of the Japanese red maple. So the tree, actually, has adapted well to the balcony. It is smart enough to extent its branches to find the sun, same as the marigolds are doing.

It is interesting how some plants can strangulate others. Might be humans learned the same technique, after watching Paredes going after Gavi.

But in terms of plants, i.e. Algarian ivy, which is a vine, can strangulate a strong tree such as redwood. As many things, they are learned if tangible. One weed, I do not know its name, with was doing that to one of the succulent small plants I have. It took a few minutes, short, to untangled the weed from its branches.