1 . The drive to create the new is part of our biological makeup. We build cultures by the hundreds and new stories by the millions.     1     But where do our new ideas come from?

Through the history of human activities, prior art promotes the creative process. Before 1908, each vehicle was custom built, with different parts assembled in different places and then painstakingly brought together.     2     Nevertheless, the idea was something he learned about from the Chicago meatpacking industry. He simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. The mining of history happens not only in technology, but in the arts as well. Even in Picasso’s painting Les Demoisellesd’ Avignon, we can trace its genealogy (血统宗谱).

    3     Take, for example, a surgeon named Anthony Cicoria, who in 1994 was speaking to his mother on an outdoor payphone when he was struck by a bolt of lightning. A few weeks later, he unexpectedly began composing and introduced his music works in subsequent years. If ever there were an example of creativity originating out of the thin air, this might be it.

However, on closer inspection, Cicoria also turns out to rely on the raw materials around him. He recalls that, after his accident, he developed a strong desire to listen to nineteenth-century piano music. It is difficult to know what the lightning strike did to his brain, but it is clear that he rapidly absorbed these musical products.     4    

We humans are always waiting for the creative lightning to strike.     5     Instead of new ideas being lit up by lightning bolts, they arise from the interweaving billions of microscopic sparks in the vast darkness of the brain.

3 . How Sociologists Define Culture

Sociologists recognize that culture plays a crucial role in our social lives. It is important for shaping social relationships, maintaining social order, and in shaping our actions and experiences in society.     1    

In brief, sociologists define the non-material aspects of culture as the values and beliefs, language and practices that are shared in common. Expanding on these categories, culture is made up of our knowledge, common sense, the norms and morals; the symbols we use to express meaning and ideas.     2     It informs how we carry our bodies and interact with others; how we behave depending on the place, time and “audience”. Culture includes the practices we participate in as well, such as religious ceremonies and the celebration of holidays.

    3     This aspect of culture includes a wide variety of things, from buildings, technological gadgets and clothing, to film, music, literature and art, etc. Aspects of material culture are more commonly referred to as cultural products.

Sociologists see the two sides of culture — the material and non-material — as closely connected. Material culture emerges from the non-material aspects.     4     But it is not a one-way relationship between the two sides. Material culture can also influence the non-material aspects. For example, a powerful documentary film might change people’s attitudes and beliefs.     5     What has come before in terms of music, film, television and art influences the values and beliefs of those who interact with them, which then, in turn, influence the creation of additional cultural products.

I was always afraid of water. This fear could not be explained, but I knew that the moment I stepped near any body of water, my legs would turn to jelly (果冻). I would imagine myself drowning in the water and thrashing around (乱扑腾) helplessly. That was why I had never gone into a swimming pool until swimming became a school requirement. My school wanted all pupils to pass a swimming test, and if they could not, then they would have to attend weekly swimming lessons in school, which made me tremble.

Thus, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons at the pool near my house. With great unwillingness, I attended those weekly lessons, and each one was great suffering for me. I was naturally clumsy, and my fear of water did not help at all. Every lesson, I would be spending my time thrashing about in the water, while my classmates would be swimming countless laps effortlessly and even turning over like dolphins in the water. How was I going to pass the test at this rate?

In my swimming class, there was an exceptionally athletic girl. Tall and muscular, her name was Kathy. She was the best swimmer in our class and always looked at me with disdain (鄙视), especially when I thrashed about hopelessly in the water.

Once, after a particularly long and hard swimming lesson, I spotted Kathy swimming gracefully in the pool. Gathering my courage, I asked gently, “Kathy, can you teach me to swim?” She stared at me coldly. It was as if I stood at the edge of an endless ocean of inadequacy, my fears appearing like dark storm clouds threatening to drown me. Yet, in that moment, a glimmer of hope flashed within me, a desperate longing for guidance and acceptance. Would Kathy’s icy exterior (外表) melt under the warmth of empathy, or would I remain forever thrashing in the sea of my own fears?

To my surprise, she nodded after a few moments of silence.

“Congratulations!” Kathy said when she learnt I had passed the swimming test.

7 . Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of pigment, has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. Together with other activities that may have been ritualistic (仪式) in _________ but have come to be described as artistic, painting was one of the earliest ways in which man sought to express his own personality and his _________ of abstract things. Unlike music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have _________ to the present day. And painting, like other arts, exhibits _________ qualities that make it easy for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate.

The major existing examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were _________ to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. _________, Western painting shared a European cultural tradition.

Western painting is in general _________ by its concentration on the representation of the human _________, whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the _________ context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance (文艺复兴) extended this tradition through a close examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, __________ painting to the developing sciences of anatomy and optics. The first real break from figurative painting came with the growth of __________ painting in the 17th and 18th centuries. The landscape and figurative traditions developed together in the 19th century in an atmosphere that was __________ concerned with “painterly” qualities of the __________ of light and color and the expressive qualities of paint handling.

In the 20th century, these interests __________ the development of a third major tradition in Western painting, abstract painting, which sought to uncover and express the true __________ of paint and painting through action and form.

8 . Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a light-weight material, about 95 percent air, with very good insulation (隔热) properties, according to Earthsource. org. It is used in products from cups that keep your drinks hot or cold to packaging material that protects items during shipping. With the above good features, Styrofoam still enjoys a bad reputation. It cannot be recycled without releasing dangerous pollution into the air. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is the fifth-largest creator of harmful waste.

But now the common worms which are usually disgusting can come to the rescue, specifically, meal-worms. Scientists from the U. S. and China have discovered that meal-worms can digest plastic. One meal-worm can digest a pill-sized amount of plastic a day. Study co-author Wei-Min Wu says that in 24 hours, the plastic is turned into carbon dioxide.

Since Styrofoam has no nutrition at all, are the worms hurt by eating plastic? Much to the scientists’ surprise, the study found that worms eating Styrofoam were as healthy as worms eating bran (谷糠) . The researchers will study the worm’s eating habits and digesting system, looking to copy the plastic breakdown but on a larger scale. Once the way can be put into practice, it will make a revolutionary difference to the disposal of plastic.

“Solving the issue of plastic pollution is important”, says Wu, a Stanford University environmental engineering instructor. After all, our earth is small and landfill space-is becoming limited with too much garbage waiting to be dealt with, he says.

About 33-million tons of plastic are thrown away in the United States every year. Plastic plates, cups and containers take up 25 percent to 30 percent of space in America’s landfills. One Styrofoam cup takes more than 1 million years to recycle in a landfill, according to Cleveland State University.

Last summer vacation, I traveled to Sanya in Hainan, China. When my dad told me one of the items on the journey would be one of the highest water slides (水上滑梯) in Asia, I asked my dad repeatedly whether I could stay at home. But my dad said that I would love it and we should go together.

Three days later, I was standing in front of that water slide in Atlantics Waterpark. The slide was located in a building. When I looked up at the tens of thousands of stairs leading to the peak of the building, I thought to myself, “If I fall from that place, I will definitely die.”

As we started climbing the stairs, I saw three words on the wall: Leap of Faith. I had never heard of these words, and at that time they reminded me of Road to Death. Five meters, ten meters ... I looked down and thought, “I am going to die today.” Fifteen meters, twenty meters ... I thought about the many things I hadn’t done and asked my dad whether I had life insurance. Twenty-five meters, thirty meters ... and we were finally at the top, ready to jump into the slide. I looked at the three people next to me and thought, “These are the last three people I will see in my life.”

Suddenly, the teenage boy ahead of me stopped in front of the slide and turned around, “Look down there. If we fall into the shark tank, we will be eaten by those hungry sharks.” We all paused and looked down at the shark tank above the slide tunnel. Just then, a younger boy next to me said, “Excuse me, if you don’t want to go now, I will go first.” Then he walked past the teenage boy and me and jumped into the slide, disappearing in an instant.

My father said to me jokingly, “Look, that boy is not even half of your height. Come on, Selina. You can do it.” The teenager turned and stared at me too, “Now, you go first.”

With a deep breath, I stepped closer to the edge of the slide.

A moment later, my father came down.