I have been reading an article about the Japanese value of “waste”. Or perhaps I should say “non-waste”?  It is such a strong cultural value that it is more a generalized fear for most Japanese. No one wants to be perceived as wasteful in Japan. This is baked into their culture in part via Shinto and Buddhism. Objects get old and they get imbued with…a consciousness via memory. For me the most tender aspect of this is the tradition of doll-burning.

On our farm we bury “waste” clothes in long-eroded ditches in order to belay the further damage to our farm that past generations have not mitigated.  I was wondering if I could do something similar with my old writing, my old books, my “lived past their usefulness but still loved” things.  I was also wondering what if anything I could do with all of my digital detritus that has served its purpose.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is “The Giz Wiz”. The creators, Dick Debartolo and Chad Johnson, have a weekly feature where they ask their viewers to create a video about one such gadget, one that they can’t bear to throw away, but is not totally without use.  I am thinking about sending one into the Giz Wiz about my dad’s old slide rule.  I can honor it as a memory and metaphor for his life and my own, but what happens after that?  Is there anyone doing a slide rule burning or some such similar ritual?  What do you think?   (Comments at the bottom or in the margins if you use Hypothes.is.)

 

Ooops, the slide rule is upside down. Oh, well.