As an outsider, you do not really notice it at first, but slowly it starts to dawn on you: you can no longer escape. Everything around you is alive: the ground you sleep on, the grass you walk on, the woods and the water where you search for food. There is movement everywhere; there are sounds everywhere. The nights are quieter, but that tranquillity is no less penetrating. Very soon you are no longer aware of the countless mosquitoes that become active after sunset. But, unnoticed, their buzzing sounds are always there in the background; it even makes the tranquillity vibrate with life. […] Is it surprising that people who have lived for centuries in such an environment experience the world around them as a spirited one (117)?

My own world is so different. Ninety percent of our environment consists of lifeless matter and implements that we have made ourselves. Apart from a drooping plant, the room in which I am putting my experiences in writing consists of lifeless matter: a computer, furniture, stone walls, and books. To a large extent, our daily environment has been created by ourselves. There is no mystery, no higher power. The lifeless matter does not invoke any feelings of spiritual connectedness and dependence at all (119-20).