Psychological Inertia
The primary choice for any conceptual being is whether to focus or drift, and this leads to a secondary choice of whether to think or evade. That the choice of focus or drift is a primary means that it is not reducible to prior choices made by the individual in question—that an individual has made prior decisions does not determine whether he will choose focus or drift.
However, this does not negate that there exists a certain “psychological inertia” with respect to such a choice:
If an individual accepts a philosophy of reason, and if he characteristically chooses to be in focus, he will gradually gain knowledge, confidence, and a sense of intellectual control. This will make it easier for him to be in focus. After he practices the policy for a time, focussing will come to seem natural, his thought processes will gain in speed and efficiency, he will enjoy using his mind, and he will experience little temptation to drop the mental reins. On the other hand, if an individual accepts an anti-reason philosophy, and if he characteristically remains out of focus, he will increasingly feel blind, uncertain, and anxious. This will make the choice to focus harder. After a while, he will experience focus as an unnatural strain, his thought processes will become relatively tortured and unproductive, and he will be tempted more than ever to escape into a state of passive drift.1
The same is true of the choice of thought or evasion—if an individual engages in habitual evasion this will lead his life to become a massive house-of-cards that becomes essentially unbearable to look at. Such an individual erroneously concludes that the universe is malevolent because all he finds is suffering—this is erroneous because said suffering is due not to the universe being “out to get him,” but rather to the fact that he habitually ignores reality and turns himself inwards. It is far easier for such an individual to continue to evade all of the problems that are being caused by his prior evasions. In short, these choices can be thought of almost like a muscle—it takes effort to focus and it takes a further effort to think.
Do note, however, that this is not philosophy—this observation belongs properly in the realm of psychology. Philosophically-informed psychology to be sure, but psychology nonetheless.