Thursday, April 24, 2008

Southeast Asia

It seems unlikely that no one else has noticed this but there seems to be some kind of engine of creativity, planetary creativity, apparently located in South East Asia.
The reasons I bring this up---recently the science news that flu viruses originate in southeast
Asia, brought back these things I had noticed before. The incredible biological diversity in for instance Malaysia. The origin of many species in this area (southeast China.) The fact that the oldest religion, Hinduism, is not only in this area, but is still vigorous after all these millenia (I base this judgment of vigor on the fact animal life is still protected in a way it is not in the west, animals protected in temples for instance.) You could make a case that the Chinese civilization is the greatest in terms of art and philosophy, that we have ever had on the planet. Religions that originated in southest Asia --Taosim and Buddhism --are able to continue while not loosing track of basic truths that the West has trouble even grasping---truths regarding change and nothingness). And a major language group appears to have originated in India, that to which English belongs.

One is tempted to assume the fact that some of this area is so volcanically active, is relevant,though exactly HOW increased volanic activity would be relevant is not clear. (See my mention of mind and matter in the first paragraph. (no reason to conclude creativity means human life is safer though, in such an area.) That a line through the Malayasian archipelago and the area including the Phillipines, seems to divide species, though the details are not right to hand (mind.)also may be relevant.

Against this idea that there is something special and generative about south east Asia,is the fact that civilization itself arose in the fertile crescent, which I cannot include in South east Asia, without extending the boundaries so much they are silly. And Jasper's axis time of history is a different kind of mapping which points to the fact that philosophy and major religions all arose within a narrow time frame. Whatever---though I am not sure we can say where civilization first arose, all we know is what is beneath where we choose to, or can, dig.

So when I say there seems to be something going on in South East Asia, am I referring to something geological?, to something spiritual, some magnetic lines of force, some energy derived from plate tectonics? I am clueless....