You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm. - Sam Harris

a significant percentage of the world’s Muslims believe that the men who brought down the World Trade Center are now seated at the right hand of God,

Islam is just a religion. Islamism is the ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. Islamism is, therefore, theocratic extremism. Jihadism is the use of force to spread Islamism. Jihadist terrorism is the use of force that targets civilians to spread Islamism. The Islamic State is merely one jihadist terrorist group. The problem was never “al-Qaeda-inspired” extremism, because extremism itself inspired al-Qaeda, and then inspired the Islamic State. It is this extremism that must be named — as Islamism — and opposed.

But it can be liberating to see how thoughts pull the levers of emotion — and how negative emotions in turn set the stage for patterns of thinking that keep them active and coloring one’s mind.