Elephemera #2: March 2023

Springing forward.

I thought long and hard about whether to continue with the monthly digest. Giving up after a single attempt isn’t even giving up; it’s merely acknowledging a failed experiment and soberly putting it behind you. Last month’s Elephemera #1 seemed to me to border the unnecessary. Certainly, February did not find me so prolific as to warrant a reader’s guide to the month-in-review. But, I wrote and published it anyway, and it felt—if nothing else—helpful to me, a useful exercise for orienting myself within the project, to reflect on and potentially revise my process. The digest format is also convenient for sharing on social media; a list of brief summaries gives new readers a better picture of the topics I write about than does my (somewhat uninformative) about page.

The creative fecundity that embued my February, unfortunately, waned somewhat during the month of March. I found myself with fewer hours of leisure at my disposal and spent a smaller percentage of those writing. Nevertheless, I did complete and publish one piece, so without any further ado…

This month’s post:

March 17 - Cosmic Microwave Background

This is a personal essay about my grandmother’s recent death and my son’s first birthday. I describe my emotions surrounding the two events via metaphors from physics, cosmology, and statistical mechanics; there is nothing too difficult for the layperson to understand (I am one myself, after all), but neither will everyone appreciate the metaphors with the subconscious ease they may be accustomed to.

I attempted to adhere to the (apocryphal) dictum of Albert Einstein as I wrote about subjects many readers will find unfamiliar: “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.”¹ I suspect that I failed on both sides of the equation, that I overcomplicated the simplifiable and simplified the irreducible beyond recognition—but, then again, I’m no physicist.

Even if you’ve already read this essay, please check it out again, just to see the new artwork. The original was published with a placeholder photograph of Neskowin’s Ghost Forest. Today, I replaced it with a bespoke illustration designed by the talented Joseph Mahaffey.

B-Sides and Rarities

I have surprisingly few completed pieces of (nonacademic) writing that I’m proud of, considering the sheer number of unfinished drafts and half-baked projects taking up space on my hard drive.

Nevertheless, I have a few, and—since it’s been weeks since I published anything—I’ve decided to publish one essay that I wrote a couple of years ago that seems evergreen enough that I don’t cringe to read it today, as well as a poem.

I didn’t want to spam subscribers or to come off as if I was recycling old material, so these won’t appear in your inbox. You can access them below:

August 2020 - The Couch

An essay about a dysfunctional relationship with a piece of furniture, focusing, primarily, on that relationship’s terminal stage.

November 2020 - Natural Selection

The last poem I wrote.

State of the Substack

When I launched the Substack, I set a goal to publish thrice monthly. When I managed to exceed that output and actually achieve double that goal during White Elephant’s inaugural month, I was quite pleased with myself and hoped to continue apace.

Consequently, I was discouraged by the meager fruits of my March labors. I had thought that I wouldn’t write an “Elephemera #2” at all, feeling it a bit redundant. It seems gratuitous—almost narcissistic—to produce commentary on one’s own writing at a 1:1 ratio.

Then again, I’m a bit of a narcissist, and—more importantly—I couldn’t shake the anxiety that, if I gave up on the monthly digest so early on in the life of the project, I might be giving up on the newsletter altogether. So I’m publishing a March digest, because I know that not publishing it will make it all the more difficult to hit the “publish” button next time. My aim for April is to publish at least three new pieces (not counting this one, of course).

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading. A huge thank you to those of you who—despite my pitiful March output—purchased new subscriptions or upgraded your free subscriptions over the past month. It is humbling and hugely encouraging.

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Thanks again. You can reach me at benjimahaffey@substack.com. Image Credit: Joseph Mahaffey.

1. Usually taken as pedagogical (explain things in as simple a manner as is possible—but no simpler), the semantic gemma of the apocryphal axiom may be from a 1933 lecture in which Einstein said:

“It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”