I always sleep with my window open, even in the mid-winter—the fact is that the heat induces rot and decay. The only way to really appreciate a bed is if it is kept cold in the room; then, when you slip a foot outside the duvet, you can really appreciate the self-generated heat in your air envelope. If you have a warm house, there’s no point—you’re just engaged in decay, the duvet is surplus. It’s only through contrast you get the benefit—and that’s true for many things.
In modernity, we have arranged our lives to destroy these opportunities—we want to keep everything homeostatic, maintain a constant comfort level (and that means there’s no real comfort—you need a little distress to generate real comfort). You need little to be satisfied: a bed, a fire—you could even sleep in the open, even in the winter; you need a cloak or blanket, of course—yet the needs are ultimately minimal; and the more we have the less satisfied we are. It’s a shame we have to cut down all the forests and poison all the rivers to have “so much” that we then feel resentful over—“I worked so hard to give you all this.” (You worked really hard to burden me with this luxury and the poisoned resentment that goes with it—a fatal gift).
Where is the forest—the stars and fire? Where is the beach, stone or pebble or sand, washed by eternity? We annexed nature and now piece by piece it is sold back. It’s all greed and it’s all putrid—overripe fruit in the bowl. We complain because we have nothing to complain about, except what matters—gods, race, nation, family—goes by the board, these oppose “progress” (by which we mean greed and self-worship). This is why I sleep with my window open, my outside is the inside and my inside is the outside—there’s no contradiction, it’s how you become a universal man.