on agency

"If that's all you know, if that's the world you've grown up in, you cannot see the boundaries for which you have to run... You cannot see what you have to rebel against, and instead you just try, sometimes heroically, to find love, friendship… Something meaningful and decent within the horrific fate that you’ve been given."

- Kazuo Ishiguro

Something I’ve been thinking of lately: none of us is agentic in every pocket of life. Parts of our psyche mature on different timelines, so the initiative we show in one aspect can vanish in another.

Someone can look outrageously in charge in area X, then fold like a lawn chair in area Y.

Take Herzog's memoir, where he writes about bolting off to

So, which is it? Should you follow your curiosity and trust the process? Or should you define a clear goal and pursue it agentically?

Walking up and down the road by our farm, I conclude that it is a false dichotomy. I can have goals and unfold (it might even be that I need goals to unfold), but it has to be a specific kind of goal.

What tends to go

If I want to explore something, I never think about attending a class; I do the reading on my own or seek out experts for conversations.
- Herzog

Herzog mapped the actual landscape and found the shortest path to his specific goals. (And his goals were very specific. He never wanted to be “a filmmaker,” he wanted to make this film and then that film.)

It’s about seeing the weight someone carries... and choosing to stand under it with them anyway.