Making A Difference

[poliphilo]

We were listening to a debate on the radio about whether it's anything more than an idle political gesture for Britain to take in a handful of Syrian refugees and Ailz was reminded of a story that goes like this...

Thousands of starfish have been stranded on a beach; a little boy is throwing them back in the sea.

Along comes an old wiseacre. "What's the point?" he says. "There are too many of them. You're not making any difference."

And the little boy throws another starfish and says, "Well I made a difference to that one."

Comments

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I was reminded of that yesterday when one of my FB friends talked about taking a hot bath and having a spider fall into the bath water. He actually got out of the bath and scooped the poor thing up, which looked dead, and putting in a dry spot and talking to it until it started to move again. Apparently the hot water put it into shock. He then put it into one of his house plants and went to work. When he got home, the little spider was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had recovered and went on to do spider business.

Such a small thing... and it meant a LOT to the spider.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like spiders. I leave them alone unless they choose to spin their webs in very inconvenient places. I would never willingly kill one.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I was very touched by this man's story.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

"A journey of a million miles begins with one step".

One is a good place to start. I like this story.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Better to do something- however inadequate- than nothing at all.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Or it may seem futile but it ould be more futile doing nothing at all.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

It is an 'idle political gesture' and an obnoxiously selfish and self seeking one by the Nick Clegg Self Adoration Club but that doesn't mean it's wrong for the folks who I hope will benefit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The motives of Clegg and co hardly matter. That's their business. If a handful of people can be taken out of squalor and danger lets do it.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I've gotten involved with a group that works to help LGBT asylum seekers navigate the (rather twisted) Danish immigration "service", and some times it's dirty business. Sometimes you need to just make sure a politician can get a headline and some talking time on TV in an attempt to keep at least one gay man from being sent back to Uganda. I hate that we have to go looking for headlines, rather than argue rationally with the immigration service, but we have to do what we have to do, because basically being a publicly known gay man in Uganda is a death sentence, even if it won't be a court-sanctioned death.

Anyway, there are too many people in the world who needs help. And as a private individual it's hard to make a real difference, to get even a single starfish back into the ocean. But I'm cat-sitting for a friend who is currently homeless (in the sense he's had to move in with his parents at the age of 27... And his dad's allergic to cats and his mum's in a very bad state with her cancer), so I guess that cat is my starfish for now. I keep it safe for him until he finds a place he can afford on his reduced benefits. (So perhaps I'm just keeping a starfish in a bowl of water, hoping I can get it into the sea some day soon.)

< / rant >