Agency and Purpose

  I too am often frustrated with the definition of purpose. I suppose, in that way, that I am suffering from "the plague" as we have discussed in class. Anyway, back to the point. I often feel like these words are garbled marbles in my mouth and i'm reluctant to use any of them for fear of misusing them. And then, if I stand back and look at what I just wrote, I see that I have this embarrassingly human, innate desire to strictly categorize and define things for them to make sense for me *sigh*. My current frustrations are trying to detect the subtle nuances between agency and free will and existentialism and absurdism. I was curious, when you say agency, do you mean that we simply have the ability to make our own choices? I haven't quite decided what I take the meaning to be. Free will, on the other hand, I see as the ability to make choice or act on them without them being already determined or set in place in the whole of time. After writing that sentence, I think I actually came to a better conclusion about my definition of agency: it's the active role you play in your life of your ability to actually make your own decisions and act on them rather than just being a "pattern" and responding in a predictable way to stimuli. 

After how frustrated I became while writing that I realize now that I need to stop caring about being right, because I don't think I cold ever come to a right answer about any of this. I feel as though I lack many of the tools and essential knowledge to combat this distinction head on..though it may seem like I could just "think about it for a while" I feel as though these concepts, in order to be understood, must be built off from other ideas and concepts..and perhaps they only hold meaning in relation or contrast to other concepts.

I've become very fond of existentialism--it's become quite an appealing way for me to look at life. Anyway, again with my struggle. Existentialism=existence precedes essence..that, because we don't necessarily have a purpose, we need to make our own (again, I find myself typing all of this very slowly for fear of not defining it correctly..[even though there is often debate over what is correct...]) and absurdism is that everything is essentially purposeless. However, it’s the futile effort that we put into life that gives life purpose. This is tricky for me, because as I take it, it’s not the conscious effort that makes purpose, (it’s not saying, ‘you worked hard, which is good, that’s what matters in life’..that would indicate that the outcomes in life are a direct result of hard effort) it’s more of the fact that we are doing anything in life that is the purpose. As Professor Grobstein was saying..that even though Sisyphus is pushing the boulder up the hill, and even though that is the purpose he has created for himself, it is futile because it keeps rolling back down. However, the fact that he is pushing the boulder up the hill over and over..that is what makes up his life. It is the effort--what he is doing to occupy his time that is the purpose of his life at the moment. I think that’s a way to help me understand absurdism. Existentialism, to me, seems to have more agency--that you are able to make your own destiny and be in control of your life despite the futileness of it all. Absurdism, on the other hand, seems a bit more passive. That you do not create purpose, but rather, what happens to you as a consequence of what you do or how you occupy your time is the purpose of your life--purpose happens to you, and life may have meaning, but there is no grand meaning to life.