''This is Chapter One of the [[SolSeed book]].''
'''We're not just talking about astronauts here''' (TODO: more formal heading?)
Being a Starfarer is really a state of mind. Consider this example:
An elderly man is tending his cottage garden. As he digs the weeds from around his carrots he looks up toward the green-white brilliance of the star that provides the energy to power the growth of his little garden. His original home was Terra, an invisible pale-blue dot that circles a barely visible pale-yellow speck in his night sky, and he voyaged to this new place from there. This man was clearly a starfarer. But when did he become one? And did he ever stop?
Our lives are bounded and shaped by the problems that we choose. Sometimes those problems choose us, such as famine in our country or a war that we are swept into. But sometimes we get to choose the problems that define our lives. Given a choice between a life defined by whether we have as nice a car as the neighbors (or whatever commonly defines the quality of a life in your culture), and a life that is part of fulfilling a Destiny to take root amongst the stars, those who choose the latter actually become starfarers by the definition we use here.
Consider what it means to live life as if it were possible to send life from our solar system to another star system and as if your contribution to this aim will matter. Given this frame of reference, other problems in your individual life suddenly seem small and their solutions almost immediate. This "starfaring" state of mind busts through the artificial ceilings we place on what is possible in our lives. It is a generative place to live from.
Since being is the fount from which doing springs, being deliberate in choosing who we will be is one of the highest callings for the human animal. No other part of creation has so many options for the being from which their lives spring. Humans can be artists, engineers, teachers, gardeners...the list is endless. Your vocations and hobbies don't even adequately define who you are. In fact, it is actually the reverse. Who you are being, your personality, values, and passions, will determine the vocations and hobbies that fill your life.
Many of us struggle with "procrastination." Noted blogger Merlin Mann, who writes about "finding the time and attention to do your best creative work," says that we only procrastinate when we forget who we really are. This is really a case of the doing getting before the being. Being is also not simply a function of personality, values, and passions. Being is to some degree a declaration. A moment by moment creation of an intention that you can live into. An intention that calls you into action with the rightness of its fit and the blissful inspiration it generates.
One of the sad forgettings of our time is the forgetting that we get to choose who we are being from moment to moment. While inertia tends to bind us into set patterns of being that are difficult to change, who we have been in the past is not decisive in determining who we will be in this moment. An example of this is the notion of being healthy. We often imagine "being healthy" as a state of being that will be achieved at some future time. If I weigh 230 pounds right now and have a flabby stomach, I'll be healthy once I lose 30 pounds and have abs of steel. This is a fallacy of a future beingness coming from a history of doing. Being is always and always in this present moment. Even if I am 30 pounds overweight, I can be healthy in this moment. If I choose to be healthy in this moment, this being will call me into actions such as choosing a salad instead of a cheeseburger. The more that I "be healthy," the more I integrate this into my habits and rituals, my patterns of being, the more healthy things I will do. The more healthy things I do, the more outward signs of health I will have (e.g., the abs of steel). Being calls us into action. Be, do, have.
When we talk about being a starfarer now, in a world that has no starships, it has the same sort of impact. Being a starfarer inspires and call us into action that is consistent with that inspiration. Being a starfarer means tearing myself away from the pattern of watching banal TV shows about "true crime," "amazing veterinary emergencies," or even the fictional adventures of a starship crew, and instead calls me into action to get online and catalogue other kindred starfarers. Then in a future moment, being a starfarer calls me into action to contact some of these kindred. Then again, as starfarer I arrange to meet some of them. Then it's suddenly 30 years later and I am part of a company, a community, a religious practice, and a family that are all consistent with me being starfarer.