Inanimate phenomena make sense as passive lifelessness, inanimate and incapable of teaching, only if I see the world about me as an alienated and disembodied, two-dimensional plain, in which my awareness lacks depth, ending at the surface of my skin. Seeing myself subjectively, against the backdrop of a landscape, it’s not hard to begin to think of that landscape as impassive, or inanimate. A mountain range, for example, becomes merely an inert scenic image, like a stage set, or a framed picture.