Books, words, and art are real and so are our phones and computers and everything that is online. But they are also all made up by us and mostly about us. They can describe the world but they are not the wider world in which we are intertwined and depend on.
While we are quite aware that we relate to and learn from other people, we can also relate to and learn from other animate beings. If you think about it, in order to survive, most of our time on earth we have paid closer attention to other creatures and our environment than we do now. We still have that ability hard-wired into us, it is just dampened when we live in cities and in our books and phones and computers.
Creatures still have to pay close attention to us. For example, a bird you are watching is certainly aware of and relating to you in some way. I think that we are still on some deep level, more aware of the creatures and objects around us than we know.
I often sit still with a feather in my hand, letting the busyness drain away. The feather speaks, not in words, but in a different kind of perception . Often for me, it is akin to a kinesthetic feeling. Or it may be a knowing that doesn’t seem to just be a product of my thoughts or imagination but somehow also involves the feather.