Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental.

But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation.

... when demand is being destroyed by expensive oil just as expensive oil is incentivising increased production - it should come as no surprise that at some point the markets would react.

Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.

The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.

Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.