Far from Instagram therapy, in certain collectivist indigenous cultures, perceiving intentionality in one’s environment fosters not paranoia about the universe, but rather harmony with it. This perspective, called “animism,” proposes that a tree is not a soulless piece of furniture; it’s more like a roommate, or even a parent. Everything in the world has an innate “personhood,” which is connected to all others, and failing to respect that risks crashing nature’s cosmic economy.
