Hm. Good question, and I can’t say I have a great answer.

I like the starfish one too, the ocean one is just better for my mindset.

I guess accountability? The starfish story appeals more to personal ego (not using the term ego as a bad thing here), where as the ocean one feels more like accountability to me.

Starfish is saying that the little thing you do can help someone, even if it doesn’t solve the problem. Ocean one is saying that everyone is responsible, even if only a tiny bit in the grand scheme.

I kind of pair it with a mindset of if every drop thinks that they don’t make a difference, that adds up. One person can’t save the planet, but every person thinking they can’t save the planet means that you have that ocean of people all thinking that they don’t matter. And that’s a big problem.

Like I said, probably not the best answer. Just rambling what came to mind.

Paraphrased probably, but:

“What is an ocean but a thousand drops?”

It’s a really good way to get rid of the mentality of one person can’t make a difference. Because everyone is a drop, and without so many drops, there is no ocean. Maybe one individual drop doesn’t truly make a difference alone. But what if every drop was gone?

It helps me feel that, even if the difference I make isn’t big enough to make an impact, an impact only exists BECAUSE of all the drops.

That goes for both positive and negative things. A thousand bad drops are needed to make a bad thing. A thousand good drops to make a good one.

There are niche reddit communities I might still interact with.

But I have a combo of NoScript/adblock/ublock origin hard mode and a cancelled premium making sure they don’t get a penny from me, and I’ll prefer to post any useful info on Lemmy instead.