Taking inspiration from The Star Thrower; Action, even in the face of futility, is the path I take.

I recall from childhood church sermons the story of the Starfish Thrower. One of my favorite parables, it tells the story of two people walking along a beach. One of them bends down now and again to pick up a living starfish and fling it into the sea. The second person asks why? What is the point? There are millions of these things on the beach - you cannot save them all. The first person reaches down, picks up a starfish and tosses it with a flick of their wrist far out to sea, then they look at their companion and they say, simply, "Saved that one."

Dozens of variations of this story are told. I've always loved it, and like to think that I live by the simple idea that one contribution, one bit of effort, has value even in the face of overwhelming opposition to success.

"The stars," he said, "throw well. One can help them."

I like to help people. The other day I took a call to help someone as they look for a job, just starting out their career and finding themselves in the worst job market of my lifetime. I can't do much directly, but I try to advise, give some ideas, review their resume, give some context on the right words to use. I put them in contact with some resources; I plan on vouching for them when I get the chance. Yet I know that I could spend all day every day having the same conversation with person after person, with no end. There are always more starfish. Still, I hope to help the ones I can each time I take a stroll on the beach.

Thinking about this story, I decided to look it up -- I discovered that the short version is a VERY choppity chopped allusion to a (longer) short essay, The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley (wikipedia). After quite some searching, I found the original version and you can read a copy of the full Star Thrower essay here.

Long ago, when the future was just a simple tomorrow, men had cast intricately carved game counters to determine its course, or they had traced with a grimy finger the cracks on the burnt shoulder blade of a hare.

The movie "Blade Runner" is similarly inspired by "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick. Please read the book! You will find that the book is not "better" so much as "bigger". Deeper, darker, wider. It is existential well beyond the android identity struggle. I find that the original Star Thrower essay has a similar relationship to the short parable I learned in church. It feels more like reading a piece by Borges instead of an inspirational bookmark.

Things, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, were to grow incalculable by being calculated. Man's powers were finite; the forces he had released in nature recognized no such limitations. They were the irrevocable monsters conjured up by a completely amateur sorcerer.

The Star Thrower essay touches upon science, spirituality, death, life, meaningfulness, Darwinistic selfishness, and on and on. Reading it during the thrash of current politics, reading it during the rise of language-using AI, even reading it during a life transition (I got a new job!) casts a different sort of light on the day-to-day and cosmic struggles I, we, find ourselves in.

I picked up a star whose tube feet ventured timidly among my fingers while, like a true star, it cried soundlessly for life.

Give it a taste. Maybe toss a starfish or two.