Much has been said and written about the power of imagination.
Visualization, a form of imagination, is employed to obtain desired results in many fields today, including sports, medicine, public speaking, politics, and religion, to name a few.
In medicine, for example, a patient suffering from a migraine or cluster headache can use biofeedback to cause blood vessels in the neck and head to expand, allowing more blood and oxygen to the brain, alleviating the headache.
Likewise, in just about every sport, coaches now have athletes visualize making that basket, or golf shot, or difficult jump. Many successful athletes utilize the technique, imagining their success before a competition even begins.
And using visualization to enhance the success of a speech, debate presentation, or other performance also is well-known.
Connecting thoughts
Journalists read a great deal and talk to many people in the performance of our jobs. In gleaning and processing so much data, our heads become filled with thoughts that, even though not used in a particular article, still float around and sometimes bump into each other, forming entirely new ideas or insights.
In working on the special report article about security in the energy industry that begins on p. 20, it became apparent that one of the greatest threats to people throughout the world is the suicide bomber. That is the "tool" that terrorists are using the most and with the greatest degree of success to achieve their goals.
The question that follows is: How is it possible for intelligent people to be convinced that killing themselves to destroy others is a good and desirable thing?
These individuals generally are young and healthy, idealistic, strong and energetic, and capable of intense determination, all qualities that could enable them to succeed in any number of endeavors for the good of mankind. Instead, they are being duped in the cruelest way, exploited, and thrown away in order to further extremists' aims.
"Used" is the key word, and the power of imagination is the element that makes that possible.
Tabula rasa
Children are born tabula rasa, or with a "clean slate." What they are taught and what they experience fill that slate, making them the type of person they are, and determine what they believe. We all reflect what is written on our individual slates of knowledge and experience.
But someone is writing the wrong things on the slates of these young people. And someone, for selfish purposes involving power, is distorting the principles and tenets of one of the world's greatest religions to convince these young people to do what they are doing. It is a clever plan, and it is working.
It is working because of human nature and because those who have the power to stop it are not stopping it.
This (in the most simplistic of terms) is how it works: Idealistic young people want to be heroes—to do good and have meaning in their lives. But to be a hero, one must have a cause and a villain to defeat. People such as Osama bin Laden and other terrorists influence them by giving them a cause and a villain and persuading them that dying to defeat the villain is noble and that they will be martyrs for their religion and heroes to their people.
Then the terrorists who are using these youths create ceremonies to "honor" them and they present funds and support to their families who become proud to see their young people so honored. Other siblings and relatives are encouraged to emulate the dead youth and seek the same "honor," thus perpetuating the cycle.
But in truth, the youth are simply being used. The terrorists know that if they convince these young people to be martyrs, they will have an inexhaustible supply of willing, expendable tools of destruction. If they convince the youths to die, it will be easier to accomplish bombings, and, because the "martyrs" will be dead, they cannot lead authorities back to the terrorists. Very clever.
But those who love and care about these young people and about the integrity of their religion need to put a stop to this sham. They need to save their youth, their religion, and their culture and regain the respect that their religion deserves.
But it would be a daunting task; they would have to rewrite the slate.
Imagine that.