Previously we covered energy and movement: you put energy into manipulating denser masses that are themselves the products of the movement and concentration of energy, whether they be earth, timber, or stone, so that you can control the further movement of energy in the hopes of maintaining the right amounts to condition your habitat.
This time I'd like to touch on insects. In the temperate rainforest, the movement of insects is an element of its own, comparable to the movement of wind or water. After the rains and then the growing heat in the spring and early summer, the insect population expands and the hordes of hungry gnats, flies, mosquitos, spiders, beetles, moths, and so on descend to fulfill their destinies and augment their splendor at the expense of annoyed animals everywhere, including us humans.
They really like the cracks and crevices opened up within existing shelters of dense material, such as timber and stone, as it provides cover and protection from predators, as well as insulation, and possibly a food source, in the case of timber. And so they pass through every nook and cranny like a breath through a screen or like water seeking out paths of least resistance. They expand and contract throughout the day like exhalations and inhalations, a natural part of the forest.
This has a direct bearing on one's preferred habitation. If you are enclosing a space for habitation, some amount of precision is preferable to get those coveted seals for blocking the movement of unwanted elements, whether its water, the passage of energy in the form of heat, or infiltration of rodents and insects that bite and annoy. Some infiltration of insect is pretty normal, even in a modern home, though with enough breaches in the building they can come and go as they please and it becomes much more noticeable.
This is solved in several ways. The modern method is to have the maximum precision of tools and instruments and individual talent itself to cut and shape materials that are mathematically and technically formed to join as closely as possible and leave as little void as possible for unwanted elements to enter into.
This level of precision implies a well-developed tradition of not only a mastery of the craft itself, but also tools that require a concentration of resource (the correct materials and practices for creating precision tools), the legacy of mathematics and related theory, social means of distribution of said instruments, and so on.
Otherwise older traditional methods include the adding of resources such as packing materials like moss and other fine plant and earth materials, the proper forming of earth, stone, and timber and the joining of such with various intermediary substances, and so on, all of which are carefully selected for their resistance to insect damage and infiltration.
Long story short, my little stick frame tent does a decent job of enclosing a space while excluding the worst of the elements, but given time and resource constraints, has plenty of gaps that can be exploited by the enterprising insect. The spiders get in through the gaps in the floor boards and I let them set up shot in the various corners to help modulate the steady flow of insects that find their way in through gaps in the loosely fitted glass and tarp-skinned walls.
The problem announced itself most glaringly at night, when all of the moths would find their way in attracted to the light, and then have trouble getting out, flying around looking for exits to get back to the ambient moonlight outside after the artificial lights went out. This was depressing, and annoying too. Besides having moths fly at my face and eyes and mouth as I checked a computer or phone screen in the dark, finding them dead in the morning was just as discouraging, and I would try to let the stragglers out in the morning if they were still around and struggling.
Afterwards I discovered an otherwise obvious but hitherto overlooked principle in the process: if you have a bright light that illuminates the whole space as it grows darker outside, well of course: the light is more intense and reaching more surfaces in the interior to register for the moths navigating by light, and they easily find the space navigating at night and find their way in through the various gaps to flutter about helplessly in one's face, which is both annoying and sad.
This is solved several different ways. One continues with the well-lighted indoor environment at night, but all of the various gaps must be more thoroughly sealed, which takes a doubling down in resources in the form of precision tools, packing and joining materials, and further sealing up the space to plug up the various holes. Otherwise one can simply work with the insects and tolerate a smaller amount of them coming through, while at the same time simply use less light, especially at night as the sun goes away, and one switches to a less intense night light that is barely enough to illuminate a small part of the space without reaching every surface and advertising one's position from far away, and of course retiring with the passage of the sun.
To generalize, it is the expenditure of energy itself that becomes magnetic, attracting more and more disparate elements. The more you use, the more you have to expend to further disperse energy used to keep those disparate and discordant elements out.
