Bona Fide

By MARVIN SHIM ‘27

If someone demanded proof that one plus one equals two, what would you do? Maybe you would grab an apple and place it next to another. Count, and you get two. It might seem straightforward to you, so you might ask, why am I questioning this? Who am I to question the truth? But is truth really self-evident, or is it just something we take for granted? Why does it make sense?

My dictionary says that a fact is a “thing that is known or proved to be true.” So I flipped to T and found the “truth.” It’s defined as “the quality or state of being true.” I found “true.” True is to be “in accordance with fact or reality.” 

So… a fact is a fact. Why can’t we go any deeper? We’ve made a name that feels like it should explain everything, but we don’t understand what it means. Perhaps truth can’t answer my question because it is an enigma itself. 

The idea that there is a fixed reality governed by immutable laws has been a cornerstone of human understanding. From the most basic principles of mathematics to the grander abstract laws of physics, we generally assume these are the rules the universe must follow. This is the objective reality. This is the truth. But the only reason you believe the truth is the truth is because someone told you it was. The only reason why you know the refrigerator is silver, or water is water, or that the act of walking is walking is because we were told this. And we have no reason not to believe them just because every other “rational” thinker believes the same.

Walking is the act of putting one leg in front of the other. What’s a leg? It’s made up of bones, tissues, and blood. What are bones? They’re made up of proteins and minerals. Those are made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of particles. The list goes on. We go to quarks, we go to bosons. Forgive me, biologists and physicians, if I missed something.

I’m no STEM guy, but there’s something I do know is missing here. We’ve embarked on a centuries-long journey to the idea of the foundational base without any substantial proof and diminishing confidence in its existence. The ancient Greeks, notably Aristotle, thought the four elements were the fundamental components. Then, they discovered atoms. Then, we moved to subatomic particles. Now, we have even smaller particles. The search for the “ultimate building block” is an infinite chase — no matter how far we go, we never quite reach it. Every time we think we’re at the finish line, we find it to be but a checkpoint. We’re chasing shadows, and the light keeps moving farther away from us.

Science is the search for the truth. And because we believe that there is an ultimate foundation, the singular unshakeable truth of reality, we continuously search for the proof of the truth. But as we kept zooming in, we didn’t get answers. We have more questions. The more we seem to understand, the further away we seem to get from something absolute. And now that we have found the quantum world, where everything has a probability and is anything but simple, we must realize that the foundational reality might just be one of our greatest illusions. 

We cling to the idea of a solid foundation because it feels safer. We want to believe that beneath the chaos of the universe lies a predictable order — a truth, something that just is. We want truth to be something static because that fits the way we see the world. We have names for things, and these names help us create categories, and these categories give us a sense of control. When we can call something a refrigerator, we all have the same basic understanding of what it is, and it allows us to experience it with some semblance of certainty. 

But it’s all a hierarchy of abstractions. Each explanation builds upon the last, when, in the end, we don’t even know where it ends up. We understand that 1+1=2. So what is one? The identity property demonstrates that any number multiplied by 1 keeps its identity. So, what is that identity? What decided the entity that we call 1 today? It’s one because that’s the way we defined it. 

We built these frameworks to describe the world, but the more we understand them, the more we realize we can never truly capture the complexity of what we experience. We are fooling ourselves whenever we attempt to justify something with “objectivity” because the truth we hold so dear is not self-evident; it’s something we’ve created. The frameworks we’ve developed to interpret the universe, language, math, and science are powerful tools. But they are just that — tools. They are not reality itself. This doesn’t mean that these frameworks are irrelevant; they provide us with a way of navigating reality, but we must recognize the boundaries of these tools. Like sailors navigating in the dark, in the storm, we’re propelled forward by an endless search for answers, but in every direction, we find another false horizon. The setting sun taunts us from the west; no matter how much we paddle, how far we row, with oars, with engines, it’ll never be enough to get to the sun.

And that leads to a sobering question. What if nothing is real?

To be frank, it’s a terrifying question. Are my friends, the people I know, the people I love, real? What if you are just a figment of my imagination? What if I am just a figment of yours? 

I watch the happenings around me as if I were watching a movie or a play. The rest of the audience in the theater are my racing thoughts. My awareness doesn’t extend beyond my own body, my own mind. I feel it best when I’m “zoned out,” and someone needs to snap their fingers to bring me back. But, from the daily interactions I have with my peers, my friends, and my mentors, I truly hope I’m living in the moment. I’m living with them, but I will never really see the world behind another’s eyes. I can feel another person’s agony from my experience, but I will never be able to walk in their shoes. 

I’m reminded of the movie The Matrix. A man’s brain is in a vat of nutrients and fed by computer-generated experiences that seem real. There’s no way for him to know if any of his interactions are real. Then how do we know it’s not the same for us? It’s impossible to conclude whether we’re in a large vat being fed experience designed to deceive us. So then do I know if anything I am doing, if anything I am seeing, is true? 

What if all of it was a dream?

But for some reason, I can’t accept this. Even with the gnawing uncertainty, there’s this persistent drive to believe in the reality of my experiences. It’s as if I need to feel real, to know that the connections I made were real. 

Doesn’t it? If life was made up, why do we feel? Why do we have such moments of anger, of happiness, of sadness, of anxiety, of passion? Why does my heart skip every time my phone gives a small beep, hoping it’s someone I care about or someone I’m hoping responds? Why does laughter feel like it could last forever at the moment, even though everyone will forget the joke tomorrow? Why do I feel my heart shrink whenever there’s a dance and I’m watching the posts pop up, even though I had decided to stay in my room? Why does the room shrink every time I go up to the podium, even though I’ve done it a hundred times before? Maybe it’s a voice deep within that tells us why it matters, even if we’re unsure if the world is real or not.

In the end, there is no safe investment. Life will break me one day. Nothing and nobody can protect me from it, but being a lone wolf won’t help me either. Our uncertainty of whether the universe and our lives are real can’t deter us from the emotions we feel, the bonds we form, or the beauty we see because we have to love. We have to feel. It’s the purpose for which we are here on this earth — to risk our hearts. To feel at all is to be vulnerable. 

Once, I was scared to nail my heart on the wall. To ever show my true colors, for fear that something, or somebody, could repaint them or that I would find nothing but pain and falsity. In the end, there might be nothing out there, and thus I was too cowardly to show my true self.

But to feel anything, my heart will have to be wrung and broken. If we wanted to keep the heart whole, we couldn’t show our heart to anyone. Locked up in a safe, having thrown away the key, surrounding ourselves with hobbies and meaningless luxuries. Texting and scrolling through reels at the dinner table. Hiding behind the screen’s walls to keep the flood from coming in and then drowning the voices out. I could have buried myself in books, pretending the stories of others could fill the gaps in my own life. I mean, I did do that in middle school. I could have drowned myself in numbing music and filled the silence with podcasts of things I don’t even care about. I could have spent every afternoon in the gym or in that suffocating golf room. But inside that cage of selfishness, the bird’s wings are clipped, and it forgets how to fly. The heart won’t be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable. It will be cold, barren, frigid, lost, gone.

Safe from life? Yes. But eternally damned into alienation. An alien among humans. Stuck in a glass box, watching the world turn. Watching as the cracks in the glass get longer and wider. Watching as the water pours in. Watching as I drown.

The fact that we feel, ask questions, connect, and strike a bond is a reminder of what it means to be human. Everything, from heartaches to leaps of joy, from the forming of bonds to their shattering, leaves an imprint. And even if they are part of an illusion, they still define us. We will never truly know how to walk in another’s shoes, but in those shared moments of vulnerability, when we reach out, we can create the deepest of connections, regardless of whether they’re real or imagined. And that’s enough.

Meaning lies not at the destination but in the journey. In a conversation in the dorm room, in the moments of reflection all alone in the quiet library, in the laughter shared at the dining table, in the times of contemplation at the Harkness table, in the small greetings on the paths, there is meaning. Even in a fog of uncertainty, there’s value in the lived experience, in the way we find meaning despite or because of, our ignorance.

Maybe the act of asking is a part of the truth itself.