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.

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.

Jenny was the only child in her family. She had a quarrel (吵架) with her mother that afternoon and she ran out of the house angrily. She couldn’t help weeping sorrowfully when she thought of the scolding from her mother. Having wandered aimlessly in the street for hours, she felt a little hungry and wished for something to eat. She stood beside a stand (货摊) for a while, watching the middle-aged seller busy doing his business. However, with no money in hand, she gave a sigh and had to leave.

The seller behind the stand noticed the young girl and asked, “Hey, girl, you want to have the noodles?”

“Oh, yes, but I don’t have money on me.” she replied.

“That’s nothing. I’ll treat you today,” said the man, “Come in.”

The seller brought her a bowl of noodles, whose smell was so attractive. As she was eating, Jenny cried silently.

“What is it?” asked the man kindly.

“Nothing. Actually, I was just touched by your kindness!” said Jenny as she wiped her tears. “Even a stranger on the street will give me a bowl of noodles, while my mother drove me out of the house. She showed no care for me. She is so merciless compared to a stranger!”

Hearing the words, the seller smiled, “Girl, do you really think so? I only gave you a bowl of noodles and you thanked me a lot. But it is your mother who has raised you since you were a baby. Can you remember the times she cooked for you? Have you expressed your gratitude to her?”

Jenny sat there, speechless and numb with shock: she remembered her mother’s familiar face and weathered hands. “Why didn’t I think of that? A bowl of noodles from a stranger made me feel grateful. Why haven’t I thanked my mum for what she has done for me?”

On the way home. Jenny made up her mind to make an apology to her mother for her rudeness as soon as she arrived home.

Nearing the doorway, Jenny took a deep breath.

At that time, her mother came back and touched her hair gently, which called her mind back.

5 . 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.

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.