This short story by Loren Eisley is for the times when we’re all frustrated at celebrities, politicians, businesses and other publicity seeking entities who do good while the camera is rolling.
One day an old man was walking along the beach. It was low tide, and the sand was littered with thousands of stranded starfish that had been washed ashore. The man began walking very carefully so as not to step on any of the beautiful creatures.
Since the animals still seemed to be alive, he considered picking some of them up and putting them back in the water, where they could resume their lives.
The man knew the starfish would die if left on the shore, but he reasoned that he could not possibly help them all, so he chose to do nothing and continued walking.
Soon afterward, the man came upon a small child on the beach who was frantically throwing one starfish after another back into the sea. The old man stopped and asked the child, “what are you doing?”
“I’m saving the starfish,” the child replied.
“Why waste your time?… There are so many you can’t save them all so what does it matter?” argued the man.
Without hesitation, the child picked up another starfish and tossed the starfish back into the water. “It matters to this one,” the child explained
{ 1 trackback }
Comments on this entry are closed.