(Madison, WI) The original starfish story, very popular among proponents of service:
Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf’s edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.
The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the person he said, “You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, “It sure made a difference to that one!”
Some variants:
1. Once a man was walking along the beach, where he saw hundreds of stranded starfish. He said, “Starfish, what are you going to do to get yourselves off this beach?” The starfish replied, “There is nothing we can do. The natural action of the waves has deposited us here. It has always been thus, and thus shall it always be.” The man said, “You are the ones you have been waiting for. Organize yourselves into a chain, pull yourselves back into the water, and then figure out a way to prevent this debacle from recurring.” The starfish felt empowered, studied engineering, organized themselves into an effective construction crew, built a breakwater, and nothing as bad ever happened again.
2. Once on a beautiful day a man was walking along the beach when he saw another man going back and forth throwing simple echinoderms back into the ocean to save them. Over the course of a several hours, he saved about 3 percent of these brainless organisms, 47 percent of which were destined to die anyway due to their long exposure on the sand. Seagulls watched as this man reduced their main food source. Meanwhile, off in the distance, huge condos were being constructed on the fragile ecosystem thanks to lax environmental regulation. The first man, a developer, chuckled. It occurred to him that a good name for the massive casino he planned for this spot might be “The Starfish.”
3. A man was walking down the beach, where he noticed a whole bunch of stranded starfish. He had read that starfish have market value, so he reached down to harvest one for his own profit. “Hands off, exploitative human,” said a voice, which came from the very starfish he had touched. “We are not your property and we don’t need your help getting back to the sea. We have second stomachs that can expand to engulf prey such as yourself when we are threatened. Come on, fellow asterazoa, let’s use our hydraulic vascular systems to propel ourselves back into the watery global commons whence we came.” The man watched slack-jawed as the starfish marched into the surf chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, greedy humans have to go.”
4. A big mean shark was swimming close to the shore, eating starfish. The little creatures decided to go up onto the beach for awhile, because they can lie in the sun for a few hours without drying out, and the shark would swim away. Then a manic do-gooder started throwing them back in, one by one. Each starfish that he threw in was immediately gulped down by the ravenous leviathan. Finally, a brave little starfish reached out a foot and tripped the man, who fell face down in the surf and was immediately swallowed whole by the shark. Sated at last, it swam away to sea.