"it matters. . ."

. . .there was a boy on a beach


.
the beach was littered with starfish - there had been a tropical storm and they had been cast up from their safe lodgings under the sea and thrown high up onto the sand by the vicious waves and the tide had gone out and they were beached
.
hundreds of them
.
hundreds and hundreds of starfish
.
the boy picked one up and threw it back into the water
.
the boy picked up a second and threw it back into the water
.
there was an old man on the beach watching the boy amongst the hundreds and hundreds of forlorn, out-of-place, slowly-dying-in-the-heat-of-the-sun starfish
.
the boy picked up a third and threw it back into the water
.
the old man said "what are you wasting your time for? there are hundreds of starfish on this beach - what do you think you can achieve? what does it matter?"
.
the boy picked up a fourth starfish and as he threw it back into the very depths of the ocean, he glanced over his shoulder, at the old man and said "it matters to this one"