We speak of the personification of inanimate objects all the time, with various degrees of approval and disapproval attached depending on the instance.
We say that this car looks sad and dejected and beaten down because it hasn't run in a while, and that firing it up implies some glorious reawakening, whereas really we are reading our personal excitement onto the machine. This is easy for an intelligence to do when interacting with objects.
But what of the feelings of the engine housings as they strain to contain the bucking engine? What of the chassis as it struggles to hold the body? What of the engine as it catches aflame? What of the earth as its blood is extracted and lit and dumped into the sky?
One attitude or perception may see to the firing up of the car's engine, and a celebration of such, whereas another attitude or perception could see the metal beasts laid to rest.
Where the aperture of perception opens and closes, where the awareness of a given constellation of affairs is scaled out or back, and attached with value, the manifestation of the reality changes.
What is it that will become animated? This depends on what one is, what one sees, and what one chooses to do with what one sees.
