by loren eisley

a friend of ours was walking down a deserted mexican beach at sunset. as he
walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. as he grew
nearer, he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking up
something and throwing it out into the water. time and time again, he kept
hurling things into the water.


as our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking
up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and one at a time he was
throwing them back into the water. our friend was puzzled. he approached
the man and said, "good evening, friend. i was wondering what you were
doing."


"i'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean," answered the man. "you
see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up
onto the shore. if i don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up
here from lack of oxygen."


"i understand," our friend replied. "but there must be thousands of
starfish on this beach. you can't possible get to all of them. there are
simply too many. and don't you realize that this is probably happening on
hundreds of beaches up and down this coast? can't you see that you can't
possibly make a difference?"


the local native smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish. as
he threw it back into the sea, he replied, "made a difference to that one."