Blame it on the speculators. If you "look-up" the word "speculation" in the OED, you will discover a pattern of association of meanings. Spread out there on those facing pages of the dictionary, you will see forty-one words -- Pretend you are looking at my, now old, OED -- beginning with "specificate" and ending with "speculatory." If you turn back a page you will see that all of these "spec" words begin with the word "spece" and if you turn forward a page you will see that they end with the word "speculum". What you will see as you read through those words that begin with those four letters -- spec -- is that they all involve the faculty of sight. "Species" means "appearance, form, kind." The theory of the evolution of the species is speculation.

"Speculation" means "The faculty or power of seeing; sight, vision, esp. intelligent or comprehending vision." It also means "The action or practice of buying and selling goods, stocks and shares, etc., in order to profit by the rise or fall in market value, as distinct from regular trading or investment . . . ." Apparently, speculation can be a risky business.

There is a certain tension in the pattern of meaning that these "spec" words reveal; speculation may be specious, the reasoning fallacious. Apparently, looks can be deceiving and therein lies the risk inherent in speculation. As for the great King Akbar: "He knew that life was not to be trusted, the world was not to be relied upon." Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence.

When I discovered books I discovered a place apart from my mother's words, my own place, a womb within which I am the beloved master. The book was a rabbit hole, and the reading was a fall into an ideal space of time. Independence is an ideal, a desire forbidden by reality. In my ideal world I create myself and the mise en scene.

Words spoken and heard alone do not permit a space in which history can unfold; there is no point of origin within the body of spoken language. All that is is the endless round from listening to speaking and back again. A book must have a beginning and an end. In the process of reading/writing Mother's world becomes Father's world; the Parents' world becomes the Child's world. This ideal world does not replace the real one; the ideal and the real are juxtaposed, but it is unclear where one begins and the other leaves off.

Does "history" arise from "nature" or is the reverse the case? In any case, since learning to read, I find myself of two minds, one real and one wishful thinking. As I see it right now, idealism is the motor of the wheel of necessity; they go together.