Chad Kovac

I am a point of consciousness, riding my temporal surfboard through an infinite fog of information. Each moment spent is like currency traded for experience, propelling me through these fractal seas of reality. I'm not alone on this board - I carry with me this dense collection of information I call my body, a vehicle that lets me traverse the fractal waters more efficiently than a lone point of awareness ever could. With each second that passes, my surfboard of time carries me and my information-dense form through countless discrete universes, each one complete yet infinitesimally different from the last. The birds overhead shift position slightly, the wind changes direction by degrees so small they're imperceptible, atoms dance in patterns that vary by the width of quantum possibilities. I can't see these changes directly - they're too subtle, too close together in the fractal pattern of existence. Instead, my consciousness, perched upon its temporal board, perceives ...

Everything comes from chaos. Everything begins as magic. At least, that’s what I believe. Some people call it superstition. Others call it pseudoscience. Me? I call it Tuesday. Picture this: I’m standing in the middle of my homestead, a place where animals roam and the only law is whatever whim catches me that day. My wand—a gnarly stick I found under a maple tree during a particularly contemplative walk—was glowing faintly. Not because it actually glows, mind you, but because my mind glowed with possibilities whenever I held it. “Chaos,” I said aloud, tapping the wand against a rock, “is the root of everything. Magic is just what we call the stuff we don’t understand yet.” The goats didn’t seem impressed. They rarely are. But I pressed on, my thoughts spiraling in the best kind of way. “Emergent properties,” I muttered, twirling the wand, “are basically magic until someone slaps a label on them. Scientists, philosophers—they’re all just wizards with fancier wands. Emergence is their m...