The Star Thrower
I
awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean's edge
and greet the new day. As I moved
through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and
flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day
soon to begin.
As
I approached, I sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the bay, but
rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping
now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the
sea. I asked the youth the purpose of
the effort. "The tide has washed
the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by
themselves," the youth replied.
"When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the
sea."
As
the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both
directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond
calculation. The hopelessness of the
youth's plan became clear to me and I countered, "But there are more
starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a
difference." The youth paused
briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as
possible. Turning to me he simply said,
"I made a difference to that one."
I
left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. I
returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw
starfish in to the sea.
Loren Eisley
