It is about how real things relate to real things. This is potentially important for how we try to picture the quantum universe. My work has little direct connection to what the string theorists do. I'm following a line that is at least twice as old but followed by far fewer people. Science has its fashions.
String theorists are a bit like a pack of hounds following an extremely promising scent.
But it is a particular scent. If they lose the trail, nothing will come of the great chase. In contrast, those basic questions will never go away. In fact, if string theory is successful, it will be very interesting to see how it does answer them. My basic idea is that time as such does not exist.