Mental Focus

The conceptual level of awareness is free–that is, volitional–the primary choice on this level is the choice of whether to focus or drift.

Let me introduce the concept of “focus” with a visual analogy. A man cannot do much with his faculty of vision until his eyes are in focus. Otherwise, his eyesight gives him only a blur or haze, a kind of visual fog, in which he can discriminate relatively little. Although the power of visual focus is not possessed by newborn infants, they acquire it very early and soon automatize its use. As adults, therefore, our eyes are automatically focussed; it takes a special effort for us to unfocus them and dissolve the world into a blur.¹

To explicate this analogy to the epistemic-conceptual sense of “focus”: to focus is to engage in a process of purposeful analysis of percepts. Or in the words of Peikoff:

“Focus” (in the conceptual realm) names a quality of purposeful alertness in a man’s mental state. “Focus” is the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality.²

I use the term analysis as a stand-in for two possible functions: thought and evasion; that is: integration, or disintegration of percepts. Either of these functions are purposeful, i.e. volitional. It is the choice between these two functions that is the secondary choice of a volitional consciousness.

Trivially, then, if focus refers to an active and purposeful analysis of percepts, then drift–its counterpart–is to relax ones mind—it is to not focus.³