“Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, ‘Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?’
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied ‘Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,’ the youth replied.
‘When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.’
The old man replied, ‘But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.’
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, ‘It made a difference to that one!’”
Adapted from “The Star Thrower”, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)”
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/56782.Loren_Eiseley
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Now, … do we operate much as the boy in this parable did … and put our efforts, money, resources and energy … into cleaning up oil-covered birds after oil spills; rehabbing animals: caught in barbed wire, hit by cars, sickened or poisoned by biocides or plastics, or wounded by a poor shot; and providing “artificial” habitat & supplemental food, other artificial assistance for endangered species; etc.?
OR
do we begin to truly and significantly change our socio-political/economic (ecological) systems and start to live in a “sabio, simple, small, slow, steadfast, sharing, sustainable” way in order to provide an Earth conducive to the thriving of healthy-biodiversity of all wildlife including insects, plants, fungi,and other biota?
I think that–morally & ethically–we do both, but with an emphasis on the latter!
[ 7 Ss / VV->^^ ]
paul b. martin
www.paulpeaceparables.com/ https://www.facebook.com/paul.b.martin.54