I was not consciously aware of "Agency" until challenged by Cassiodorus.
          However I have been, for a very long time, familiar with this: " ... the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices." I was not aware of this context: "In social science, agency is ..." lifted from en.wikipedia.org.

          I thank Big Al for suggesting the title of this article to me in his very excellent rant:

          ... Or like the right wing cowboys and conservative John Wayne "patriots" who think the muslims are going to rape their women, take their shotguns from the back of the pickup trucks and make them chant Allah Akbar before they behead them. The ones that chant U.S.A. at the drop of a cowboy hat.

If you have not yet read his article, it is well worth your time (follow the above link). Oh!, and by the way, this is my everyday hat:

          Mine is a simple "coming of age" story. As I approached eighteen I just assumed I was going to get drafted and get to serve my country by dying in some rice paddy over there. Before The Green Berets was even a script I figured I would die trying to kill, kill, kill ... But something happened on the way to the slaughter.
          I do not remember filling out any paperwork, maybe it was an automatic process. I was, after all, entering my junior year of high school. So, by some machination or other I was deferred from the draft. Too bad, because I was as "ready to go" as I could ever be. So, instead, we (a small group of friends) formed what could best be described as a debating society.
          We debated life, the universe, and everything. And we explored developing various "plans of action" appropriate to the topic at hand. We were all about developing effective ways to influence others. We eschewed sophomoric constructs like "Society Says", and "There Ought to be a Law" in favor of developing an understanding of how we each and severally acquired our particular perspectives. And, how we could be effective in stimulating others to act with "malice aforethought". Without premeditation effective action is impossible. I started learning the power of agency as we implemented some of our "plans".
          If anyone is interested in exchanging stories, I can describe some of the things we did that upset various individuals.
          Two years later as I was about to graduate I filled out the paperwork that would provide me a draft card with the college deferment annotation. I had not yet worked out just what to do about that particular problem. Having met a couple of returning Vets, at the community college, I knew what to do. Nixon was the newly elected president, so I wrote a nasty note to the local draft board about Nixon's Army and enclosed my draft card. Then I waited ...
          Again, if anyone is interest ...
          The upshot is: After that approximately two years of "training" I never stopped being a thorn in the side of "authority". While I can't say I have always won in every conflict, I can say, I have never lost in any conflict. Such is the nature of mediation and conflict resolution.