[bcbrown]

And yet we cannot tame it.

I understand the objection - clearly the Mississippi is not sentient, does not consciously choose what to do. It's a collection of matter that obeys the statistical laws of physics. Clearly the intuitive sense of the word 'agency' does not fit, at least to me. I think of agency as having the capacity for decision. But when I look at my dictionary, I see this definition first: "Faculty or state of acting or of exerting power; action, instrumentality".

We certainly cannot stop the Mississippi from flowing; is that not an exertion of power?

[bobthepanda]

Taoism looks at this debate with perplexion. Water doesn’t have agency, it just is. Sometimes, things just are the way they are, and that’s okay.

[bcbrown]

  The Master does his job
  and then stops.
  He understands that the universe
  is forever out of control,
  and that trying to dominate events
  goes against the current of the Tao.