spec·u·la·tion

There is a strange generalization out there that when a woman wants to celebrate, or when a woman wants to make herself feel happy, she goes shoe shopping. I am not a part of that generalization. I hate shoes. I hate shopping. I most definitely despise the two in tandem. There is only kind of shopping I do enjoy, and will do it in order to celebrate or to lighten my mood--and that is book shopping. I may not even purchase a book, I may merely wander about the aisles and soak up the feeling of warmth, wit, and intellect that these little pieces of wood pulp provide.

I am a frequenter of Barnes & Noble. Given a choice of bookstores to while away the hours in, I will choose either the local mom and pop shop, or Barnes & Noble. However, this weekend I changed it up - having a coupon that exceeded my Barnes & Noble discount, I went to Borders.

Bookstores are set up differently everywhere. They do not go in the nice orderly fashion of Dewey Decimal, although generally the Literature category is atleast alphabetized. Borders does not sway from that one foundation. However, in the Non-Fiction realm, which is scattered about the store, I found a category I had never seen before in my usual book shopping experience: Speculation. Hmmm…

spec·u·la·tion, n. 1. the contemplation or consideration of some subject. 2. a single instance or process of consideration. 3. a conclusion or opinion reached by such contemplation. 4. conjectural consideration of a subject matter; conjecture or surmise.
(Webster's College Dictionary, p. 1286)

By mere definition, one would speculate that this category would be quite large. Afterall, isn't all writing purely speculation? Unless ofcourse you write things without consideration. But this section only consisted of two shelves. Oddly, one book I found under Science was also displayed here under Speculation. The other titles were ones I would have found in other stores under Metaphysics or New Age. But Borders had a Metaphysics category which was actually quite large and consisted of books on angels and talking to the dead along with some Pagan ritual instruction. Some titles on the two tiny shelves I would have thought might have been found under Mythology. Other titles I would have presumed to be under Archeology. Such titles as The Twelfth Planet, books on Atlantis, the one I found also in Science had to do with Quantum Physics—all these, according to Borders was Speculation. (although perhaps the book found in both places was a new employee's mistake—although I'm not sure which section would have been correct)

So what constitutes Speculation? If one really thinks about it, the difference between Science and Speculation I suppose would be the same difference between Religion and Mythology—Religion is what we believe; Mythology is what everyone else believes. I always wondered why we were taught "Greek Mythology" but not "Christian Mythology" or "Jewish Mythology". And isn't Science merely Speculation? At what point is a fact actually proven? Sure, we have our "scientific procedures," but how often have we learned that what we knew wasn't true when another test came along?

I was watching Discovery the other night and it had a documentary about prehistoric animals and the planet. It began by stating, "Billions of years ago, a small atom exploded and created our universe." Funny, I didn't think that was fact yet, but the narrator sounded so definitive on the issue. I thought that was still in the speculation stage—especially because shortly after that documentary, there was another one about the different theories on how our universe began. So where does speculation turn into fact and can be categorized elsewhere in the store?

Reality is colored by our own unique perspective. In fact, some would even argue that Reality is dictated by our own perspective. I haven't come to a conclusion yet on which one I attest to. But then again does it really matter? Afterall, it clearly is just Speculation.