A digit can be a numeral, a finger, or a toe. Digit rhymes with fidget, which your digits can do. And it also rhymes with idjit (a Thelmism) which you might be if, for example, you use your central digit to “flip” an avian symbol at another idjit, perhaps one who is driving erratically.
Today’s world tends to be digital — on/off, yes/no, us/them — with checkboxes purporting to cover all the areas. But they seldom do.
Analog is better. Analog allows for nuance, for interpretation, for the infinite number of possible circumstances and responses in the realm of humanity. Take clocks, for a basic example. An analog clock shows me how much “space” I have to go between where I am now and where I need to be. Glance at a digital clock, and it announces, “Surprise! You’re late!” No, no, no. Not okay.
“One-size-fits-all” seldom fits all. “Zero tolerance” does not allow for choices, reasoning, weighing extenuating circumstances, and the natural and meaningful consequences that follow. If we respond only to someone else’s set of checkboxes, we will never stretch, grow, calculate, learn from our mistakes. Even in mathematics, although our society tends to use the decimal system, there are many possible ways to solve problems –for example, the binary system, the duodecimal system, “new math”, set notation. Why should we limit our possibilities? We could not have come so far in society without exploring, testing, developing new theories, discovering. And yet, despite the vastness of our universe, our current society keeps trying to box us in. Advertising tells us what products we “must have”. Government strives to limit our freedoms. Schools want to corral students into a narrow curriculum. Technology is often valued over the arts.
We need to stay on our toes. We need to count using not only ten fingers and ten toes but also elbows and ears and eyes and grains of sand and a myriad stars. (Those stars are out there, you know, along with a yet-to-be-known number of other constellations, worlds, solar systems, planets, societies.)
In other words, let’s not be idjits.