Thank you for taking the time to try and give me a broad overview of the different nuances of the word, unfortunately here the student has failed the teacher. I'm still very confused. I previously have understood the porridge sense of agency (tangent - I like that phrase 'porridge word', reminds me of Minksy's 'suitecase word') to be "an entity that has influence or can affect change". Here on LW I have been brought to believe it just means acting, verging on thoughtlessly, which I understood to be since acting is the only way to catalyze change (i.e. change towards one's goals).  [...] I failed to explain my confusion: It's not so much "letting them wither" let me put it another way: if you are in a bunker, there's a armed conflict overhead, and therefore the smartest thing to do is "nothing" by staying put in the bunker, are you being agentic/acting agentically? The only things they can initiate at that point are unnecessary risk. Likewise, I don't mean nominally having some role. Not nominally but actually having the means, the power, the authority, the social status, the lack of negative repercussions to exercise the means, the knowledge but choosing not to exercise it because they evaluate it as not being worthwhile. They could initiate changes, but they rarely see the need, not from fear or reluctance, but from weighing up the pros and cons. Are they being agentic? Agency here is not "change for the sake of change" but presumedly "acting in a way that materializes the agent's goals" and that requires initiative, analogous to Aristotle's Kinoun (Efficient) Cause - the carpenter who takes the initiative of making wood into a table. However the connotation of spunk, hustle, ambition etc. etc. and generally acting with energy and enthusiasm towards goals -- knowing that these are not golden tickets to success (Necessary factors? Probably. Sufficient? Probably not.) -- confuses me what this quality is describing.