{"id":10150,"date":"2012-03-11T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?page_id=10150"},"modified":"2025-11-23T15:31:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T20:31:48","slug":"the-propagational-library","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/","title":{"rendered":"The Propagational Library"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center highlight\" style=\"font-size: 125%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 36pt; color: #993300;\">Note (as of Late 2025)<\/span><\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote highlight\">\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-size: 90%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">I recently decided to resurrect (&#8220;propagate&#8221;?) this project, <a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.substack.com\/s\/the-propagational-library\">over at the Substack incarnation<\/a> of my <em>Running After My Har<\/em> brand, such as it is. The links below will lead you through the story as I first wrote and posted it, one chapter a week, here at <em>RAMH<\/em>. This may be sort of vaguely interesting, but first drafts &#8212; surprise! &#8212; are always flawed; I believe <a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.substack.com\/s\/the-propagational-library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the 2025\/Substack draft<\/a> is the one I&#8217;d prefer to read, rather than this one. For now, a Google search on &#8220;The Propagational Library&#8221; will still lead you here, though. Just want you to know what you&#8217;re getting into!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>The Propagational Library<\/em>\u00a0is&#8230; well, I guess you could call it a Web serial:<\/strong> a set of brief, linked stories. You&#8217;ll want to read them in the order listed below.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; border-top: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 1px solid black;\"><strong>Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Introduction: The Librarian\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/the-propagational-library-introduction-the-librarian\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Introduction: The Librarian<\/a> (February 18, 2012)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 2: The Finding\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/the-propagational-library-1-the-finding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chapter 1: The Finding<\/a> (February 25)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 2: Kali\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library-2-kali\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chapter 2: Kali<\/a> (March 3)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 3: A Barrel of Monkeys\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library-3-a-barrel-of-monkeys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chapter 3: A Barrel of Monkeys<\/a> (March 10)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 4: The Room\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library-4-the-room\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chapter 4: The Room<\/a> (March 17)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 5: The Two Gabes\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-5-the-two-gabes\/\">Chapter 5: The Two Gabes<\/a> (March 24)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 6: Alone\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-6-alone\/\">Chapter 6: Alone<\/a> (March 31)<\/li>\n<li>Interlude (with elevator music): <a title=\"The Propagational Library: A Brief Lull\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/the-propagational-library-a-brief-lull\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">download an e-book version<\/a>\u00a0(PDF, Kindle, EPUB)\u00a0of all the above, in one chunk (April 7)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 7: Thenward\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-7-thenward\/\">Chapter 7: Thenward<\/a> (May 5)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 8: Dreamtime\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-8-dreamtime\/\">Chapter 8: Dreamtime<\/a> (May 12)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 9: 'But What About ME?'\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-9-but-what-about-me\/\">Chapter 9: &#8220;But What About <em>Me<\/em>?&#8221;<\/a> (May 19)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 10: Striking a Match\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library\/the-propagational-library-10-striking-a-match\/\">Chapter 10: Striking a Match<\/a>\u00a0(May 26)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 11: The Sponge\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library-11-the-sponge\/\">Chapter 11: The Sponge<\/a> (June 2)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Chapter 12: Beyond\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/the-propagational-library-12-beyond\/\">Chapter 12: Beyond<\/a>\u00a0(June 9)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.25em;\"><em>[Aside, for sticklers: the first couple of installments (the Intro and Chapter 1) appeared as regular blog posts. Starting with Chapter 2, I&#8217;ve done a regular sort of post consisting of just a brief opening excerpt. At the end of that opening is a link to the full installment. The list above directs you to the full installments only, not to any associated blog posts. Note, too, that if you want to see <\/em>only the blog posts<em>\u00a0pertaining to\u00a0<\/em>The Propagational Library<em>, you can use <a title=\"All RAMH blog posts related to 'The Propagational Library'\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/category\/06_writing\/propagationallibrary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the post category<\/a> by that name, in the right sidebar.]<\/em><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; border-top: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 1px solid black;\"><strong>Background, for Interested Parties<\/strong><\/p>\n<span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">W<\/span><em>hy write, at all?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That question had been bugging me for, well, years &#8212; sometimes consciously but (I assume) nibbling at the back of my mind as well. It doesn&#8217;t ask the question in a writers&#8217;-workshop, what-do-you-get-from-writing way. (Not that answering that form of the question isn&#8217;t important, even <em>required<\/em>, in order to write in the first place.) No, what it asks goes more like this: In the end, why does any writing at all &#8212; from best-sellers to grade-school diaries, prophecies which change the lives of millions to tweets from a Twitter user with no followers &#8212; why does it even\u00a0<em>matter<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>All writing presupposes the presence of a reader, of an audience, even if the only reader is (or will ever be) the work&#8217;s author. It&#8217;s a given, though, that all readers must ultimately pass away. Depending on which &#8220;<a title=\"Wikipedia, on the ultimate fate of the universe\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fate of the universe<\/a>&#8221; scenario you believe, even the reading machines which replace us may evaporate or wind down. The molecular and electromagnetic structures which hold the writing in the first place will go with the machines.<\/p>\n<p>Worse: not just the writing will go, but everything which led to the writing in the first place. Not the authors &#8212; that&#8217;s a given, remember? No: <em>the ideas which the writing carries<\/em>. All of it, and all of them:\u00a0<em>Hamlet<\/em>, <em>Catch-22<\/em>, the nonfiction of John McPhee, <em>In Cold Blood<\/em>, Terry Pratchett&#8217;s DiscWorld novels, Shel Silverstein&#8217;s <em>Where the Sidewalk Ends<\/em>,<em>\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, <em>Pride and Prejudice<\/em>, E.E. Cummings&#8217;s &#8220;i love you much my most beautiful darling,&#8221; the 1956 edition of the <em>World Book Encyclopedia<\/em>, the love letter you wrote but never sent &#8212; the kiss-off letter ditto! &#8212; the\u00a0<em>Bhagavad Gita<\/em> and the <em>I Ching<\/em>, every single rule or narrative fragment or proverb or metaphor in every book of the Bible (including the apocryphal and spin-off ones), all the <em>Twilight<\/em>\u00a0and <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0fan fiction and parodies&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>All those ideas behind all those gazillions of words in all the world&#8217;s languages: gone. Might as well never have existed.<\/p>\n<div>And so: <em>Why write, at all? <\/em><strong>*<\/strong><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;-<\/p>\n<span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">I<\/span> began writing <em>The Propagational Library<\/em>\u00a0in February, 2012. Across thirteen installments (the last posted on June 9), I posted one piece of it a week (but spending the month of April otherwise occupied, you might say), always on Saturday: the results of that day&#8217;s writing session (and hence, more or less in first-draft condition). I could probably add new bits to the tales of the Library indefinitely. But the scaffolding&#8217;s in place, at least. For now, I&#8217;m moving on (however temporarily) to other things.<\/p>\n<p>__________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>*<\/strong> The question focuses on writing but, of course, goes much more wide and deep than that &#8212; extending to music, painting, dance, film, and so on. It&#8217;s really: <em>Why <\/em>create<em>, at all?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note (as of Late 2025) I recently decided to resurrect (&#8220;propagate&#8221;?) this project, over at the Substack incarnation of my Running After My Har brand, such as it is. The links below will lead you through the story as I first wrote and posted it, one chapter a week, here at RAMH. 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