The inanimate

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By dropping the animals-are-useful model, I am stepping into a world of imagination … where there’s an animated soul in things, not just in humans, not just in animals, but in every thing. By imagining that there’s a soul (or whatever you call it) in every thing I conclude that everything is sovereign and worthy of respect … at least, worthy enough for me to grant it some of my attention.
One of the most beautiful objects anyone could aspire to own and use is a flute. A human can be ‘risen up’ by the wonderful flow of sounds produced by the flautist and this musical instrument. I like to think that this is an example of the inanimate becoming animate - flute responding to flautist. The object comes alive, not quite like an animal but in another no-less-convincing way. Objects can be beloved because we’re having what feels like a relationship with them - our car, cat, kids, even a mirror. Take a mirror for example. It responds to me by showing me my face and that makes a mirror a useful item, and seven years bad luck if you break it, ha, ha. Or other things we can get attached to, like my bike. The object speaks to me and if I fail to listen to it, to feel its workings, if I don’t maintain it properly, the brake cable quietly rusts away and snaps at the worst possible moment, and I suffer the consequences.
Our attitude towards our inanimate possessions is a template for how we deal with the sentient beings in our care or in the care of those we commend to the task of providing our food. If I’m careless about the things I own, it’s likely I won’t be too sensitive about the living beings in my care, be they human or non-human.