by Siddiq Islam

REALISM – late 18th century:
from real + -ism, after German Realismus

Realism is humans’ attempt at capturing the world around them in a ‘realistic’ way. The word applies itself in many contexts, from the art world, where painters try to depict natural objects as accurately as possible rather than the more symbolic and unrestricted forms of more ancient works, to international politics, where there are those that reason that nations can be modelled as actors with individual needs and interests at heart.

Whatever the context, humans seem cursed with this innate attraction to trying to confirm the world around them into a categorised system that is easier to understand. I encounter this a lot when talking to mathematicians, who like to simplify absolutely everything they can into groups and sets, whether it is the walking times between colleges or boxing every food imaginable into either ‘soup’, ‘salad’ or ‘sandwich’.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how many parameters we give it, life cannot be defined. It is simply too complex. I urge readers to instead view the universe as a model of itself, ready to be explored in real time and at one’s own leisure. Do not waste time attempting the impossible: to encapsulate what cannot be put into words or drawings, what is already so full and coloured.

In case that first philosophy did not tickle your metaphorical pickles, indulge me to articulate another.

A few weeks ago, I found myself caught in a trap between religion and science. I have never trusted design arguments as a reason to believe in God, especially since science seems to ‘explain’ everything so well and is not taught in coincidence with any thoughts of God. Nonetheless, the less atheistic among you will also have encountered the same inner conflict of believing that God created the universe and yet has no part to play in its motions.

An article written by someone two years wiser than me opened my mind somewhat to the ineffectiveness of science at blockading God from life. It highlighted how the energies that we have been blessed with the ability to harness and manipulate, such as magnetism and electricity, are just as likely to be caused by God as they are to be caused by invisible, intangible, inedible forces. With the image of two North angels repelling every like-charged magnets, and several gravity angels dragging the crumbs that falls from my sandwich to the ground, I feel much more comfortable in granting God a place in the world around me.

This recent personal revelation confirms my distrust of any forms of concrete knowledge. Reality is not something that can be properly consumed; rather, only our perceptions are available to us. Dreams and memories serve as our interface with the world, and they play out entirely in our heads, so I am convinced that the lands I conjure as I sleep are just as real and purposeful as the lectures I attend at university and the acrylic apples that Cézanne frames in his paintings.