Possibly, I used to be all in on your perspective but could never make any progress so I moved on.
Really? You rigorously considered that the natural reference system of the physical universe is not stationary ?
By realist I mean critical thinking, first principals and accepting things for what they are in reality.
There is nothing wrong with critical thinking. I hope that this type of thinking also extends to force fields without a defined mechanism for their existence, particles like the proton and electron, virtual particles popping in and out of existence (sic!), electric charge, the so called fundamental forces and myriad of other mental crutches.
The current state of science requires us to take these ideas on faith, often misnaming them as "objects" while offering the well-defined relationships between them as mathematical evidence for their reality.
The example of two attracting currents (Ampere's forces) or two attracting permanent magnets are good examples how we can mathematically calculate these forces and relate them to auxiliary mental crutches like the magnetic flux density gradient, but not be able to define the mechanism of these forces.
The rejection of the stationary geometric reference system, as the reference system to which the physical universe actually conforms, offers a solution to this problem. It conceptualizes all matter as a multidimensional motions with very specific properties and all forces as relations between multidimensional motions. It also does away with space as an object that can be e.g. bent/curved like a fabric (an idea that I find paricularly repugnant). It is simpler and explains much more than anything we have now.
In reality everything we know is a lie of sorts.
What does that say about realists

?
IMO the Minkowski's spacetime is a highly effective prison for our minds and it works so well because our senses support it at the first glance.
Hoffman calls it a "headset" and correctly notices that what our science to date has been studying the "headset" - not reality.
extra-headset objects such as the Amplituhedron predicts what we see inside the headset much better than any structure inside the headset.
For example, any object is only 1% matter and 99% fields and energy.
...also consider what percentage of that is not-space.
Energy is not the problem,
...but incorrectly defining energy is a big problem.
The discovery that energy is an inverse speed through dimensional analysis has paramount consequences, even more so than the discovery that matter is energy cubed. The most immediate one is provoking the question "inverse with respect to what" ?
"Inverse speed" does not make much sense in a stationary reference system. From the answer to this questions all kinds of conceptual solutions arise: explanation for the fundamental forces, the structure of the photon, proton, neutron, electron and the entire periodical table of elements and why currents and magnets attract, why antimatter is not ubiquitous (because it does not gravitate in space) the whole dark energy, dark matter catastrophe, and a whole lot more.
having the intelligence to access said energy is.
So we need to be realistic ...
What does that mean exactly ?
Avoid the construction of theoretical frameworks altogether or limit them to the study of the "headset" only ?
IMO whatever explanation we come up with cannot conflict with our observations, but we must keep in mind that some, if not all, of our observations are the constructs of out Minkowski "headset" with a pinch of gravity. The rejection of the stationary reference system as the reference system to which the physical universe actually conforms does not conflict with our observations - it hive the reason for them, because our observations are based on the stationary system anchored to the inverse speed of matter, not on the expanding reference system.
and avoid generalizing.
Inductive reasoning, from the general to the specific is one of the paths to scientific discovery.
Deductive reasoning is the opposite ...and there are no other ways.