Well, it never seemed real to me. I mean, I find aesthetic beauty in it and it’s a practical modeling tool up to a point, but for me, smoothness is the brain’s compression mechanism simplifying reality and our mathematics that utilize notions of smoothness are mirroring our cognitive limitations.
Maybe that’s not how it is but for whatever reason, it’s how I seem to think of it. Probably because computer stuff for me came early so I think in those terms.