Mental Focus as Having Degrees

To focus is to engage in a process of purposeful analysis of percepts---the choice between focus and drift stands as the primary choice of a volitional consciousness. But, this does not imply a binary---that is, it does not imply that you are either in total focus, or total drift.

As there are degrees of visual acuity, so there are degrees of awareness on the conceptual level. At one extreme, there is the active mind intent on understanding whatever it deals with, the man prepared to summon every conscious resource that will enable him to grasp the object of his concern. Such an individual struggles to grasp all the facts he believes to be relevant---as against being content with a splintered grasp, a grasp of some facts while other data dimly sensed to be relevant are left shrouded in mental fog, unscrutinized and unidentified. In addition, he struggles to grasp the facts clearly, with the greatest precision possible to him---as against being content with a vague impression, which loosely suggests but never congeals into a definite datum.^[1]

This can be validated by direct introspection---every man has, at some point, experienced states of absolute and unflinching focus on the task at hand; a state where one's awareness of the facts of his pursuit are entirely clear and present within everything he is doing. This is sometimes described as a sort of "flow state." Below this level, we have all also experienced normal working, perhaps you are doing your task but you are also distracted by the TV in the background, or your phone buzzing in your pocket---you are letting your mind drift into a few daydreams as you carry about whatever monotonous task you are engaged in. Then at the very extreme of the "drift" end of the spectrum is the man who has "turned his brain off," perhaps to watch a Marvel movie, or to shoot up heroin.

This concept of degrees of focus is found in the idea of "mindfulness"---it is actively turning your awareness completely and without fault towards whatever you are doing at all times. To eat mindfully is not to watch a YouTube video whilst you eat, but to focus on the texture, taste, smell, etc., of whatever it is you are eating.