It would appear that vibrators are no longer the only machines to get buried.
The globe-trotting CIA assets of the (inter-)National Geographic are reporting on a new customer service in Japan, purposed with offering traditional Buddhist funeral ceremonies for recently irreparable robot dogs.
Because what could possibly be more zen than a barking paperweight that barks no more?*
Initiated by a proud though former Sony employee who had since started his own electronics repair business, the service is geared to provide comfort and closure for those possessing any of the limited thousands of Sony’s AIBO dog-shaped robotic pets, which evidently had had all updates discontinued in recent years despite an apparent affinity for the products held by persons not too thrilled about pee-soaked shoes and the like.
The quite possible perversion of Satori aside, this story clearly presents a curious new twist in the decidedly modern and unfortunately ongoing dilemma of emotional attachments developed for devices.
And perhaps it also says something or other about the dangerous intermingling of religious fundamentalism and brand loyalty, which really are the same thing if you ask me. Fear and desire are both just fancy ways of saying emptiness. Our emptiness is manipulated. The urgency of needing to feel any sense of belonging is pointless when the universe will always claim us whether we want it to or not.
To the credit of those partaking in this strange new cultural trend however, the beloved gadgets are certainly receiving a more beautiful send-off than the untold souls laid to rest in any of the too many nondescript Potter’s fields here in the west. Recognizing the value of a thing, of anything, does leave one with a better understanding of one’s self, after all.
* Rhetorical question, Ignatius.