Every inanimate object has its own character and pathos and these are essential parts of the way that you deal with them. To be good at getting things to work, at repairing them, is a kind of personification and respect. This varies in degree, however, and along traditional lines; a pencil has more soul than a computer mouse. It is not about cheap versus expensive, or any obvious social formula, despite the avalanches of cheap and soulless things, the marketing excesses etc. Being attentive to the spirits in things is projection, surely, but not merely projection.