Leon was a postman. Every day after Leon woke up, he would feed his 37 cats. Leon didn't really want 37 cats, but one by one they had turned up on his doorstep, and Leon had taken them in.

    Every day, after feeding the cats, Leon would collect the mail from the red postboxes in the village and take it home to sort（分类）. “If only I had 37 helpers instead of 37 cats, my job would be so much easier,” Leon thought. Just then, the cats started meowing for their dinner. That gave Leon an idea. That night, Leon stayed up making 37 cat-sized postal backpacks. Each backpack fitted neatly onto a cat's back. Then, he went around to each postbox, putting signs up that read: Postbox closed. Please use the Postal Cat Service.

    The next day, Leon put a backpack on each cat and dropped off the cats around the village. Leon knew that the cats would be happy lazing around all day. He also knew that they would always come home for dinner. Leon spent the day relaxing, waiting for his helpers to return. Leon was right. The cats did return, but they did not bring home many letters. Somehow, the cats had managed to wriggle（蜿蜒而行） out of their backpacks. Or lose their letters. Or get the letters wet. “Cats are just too unreliable（不可靠的）” Leon thought. Just then, there was a scratching（刮擦声） at Leon's door. A dog was waiting to be invited inside. That gave Leon an idea.

    A farmer had a cow. He took very good care of this cow and one day when it was ill, he was very worried. He telephoned the vet.

    "What's the problem?" The vet asked him when he arrived.

    "My cow's ill," the farmer said. "I don't know what's the matter with her. She's lying down and won't eat. She's making a strange noise."

    The vet looked over the cow. "She's certainly ill," he said, "and she needs to take some very strong medicine."

    He took a bottle out of his box, put two pills into his hand and said, "Give her these. The pills should make her better."

    "How should I give them to her?" the farmer asked.

    The vet gave him a tube (管子)and said, "Put this tube in her mouth, then put the pills in the tube and blow. That'll make it."

    The next day the vet came to the farm again. The farmer was sitting outside his house and looked more worried.

    "How's your cow?" the vet asked.

    "No change," the farmer said, "and I'm feeling very strange myself."

    "Oh?" the vet said, "Why?"

    "I did what you said," the farmer answered. "I put the tube in the cow's mouth and then put two pills down it."

    "And?" the vet asked.

    "The cow blew first," the farmer said.

    One day in a restaurant, the American writer Anne Herbert wrote this sentence on a piece of paper: "Random(任意的) actions of kindness." Later she repeated it in an interview on a TV show, and it soon caught people's eyes and made people think about how small "kind" actions could make our daily lives better.

    One rainy night, a woman was standing at a bus stop waiting for the bus. A man came by on a motorcycle and offered to give her a ride. Of course, the woman said no. It would be crazy to accept a ride from a stranger on a motorcycle. Suddenly the man reached out and put a 50-dollar bill in her hand. He said, "Please take a taxi. It hurts me to see you standing here in the rain." Before she could refuse, he left quickly on his motorcycle.

    Kind actions can be contagious. Once, a woman was going through a toll station(收费站) on a highway. Instead of paying for one ticket, she asked for two. She said to the toll collector, "The second ticket is for the car behind me." She didn't know the person in that car. She just did it without thinking more. So when the next car came up, the toll collector said to the driver, "You don't have to pay. The woman in the blue car just paid for you." The driver was so surprised that he decided to pay for the person behind him. This continued with 14 drivers that day.

    So just imagine what the world will be like if we all practice random actions of kindness from time to time?

    Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh(1853-1890) killed himself by shooting himself in the chest(胸膛).

    This is what van Gogh himself told his brother, the doctors and the police just before he died.

    However, in a new book Van Gogh: The Life, two Pulitzer (普利策奖) Prize-winning authors, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, argue that van Gogh may have been murdered. They believed that the artist was protecting a 16-year-old boy named Rene Secret, who shot him accidentally.

    Van Gogh's statement that he shot himself was accepted because he had been mentally unstable(精神状况不稳的) for two years. He suffered from psychotic(精神病的) attacks and imagined things that were not really happening. Art critics (评论家) believe that his unstable mental state is shown in his work, describing his style of painting as shaken. Some of his most famous paintings, such as The Starry Night, were produced during this period.

    Van Gogh is among a number of creative minds who suffered from mental health problems. In fact, mental illness is so common among famous creative figures that scientists have studied whether there is link between creativity and insanity(精神错乱). Research began in the 1970s, but the idea that an unstable mind could be linked to creative genius(天才) was already around in ancient Greece.

    Some scientists believe mental illness, in its more manageable state, gives artists creativity. Research has found that doing creative activities can also be therapeutic(有疗效的) for people suffering from mental illness. Painting, writing, or making something can be a positive way for people to express their thoughts.

    Two months ago, I went to Australia for a meeting with my workmate, John. We decided to drive across the country to Brisbane after the meeting ended. The drive was going to take four days and most of it was across the desert.

    The first day was a lot of fun as we were excited and laughing at each other's jokes. On the third day, we began to get bored.

    We had been quiet for a few hours when John saw some kangaroos. We were both excited and decided to catch up with the kangaroos. We got closer and closer- too close when we heard a loud BANG!

    John stopped the car and we got out. Behind the car was a large kangaroo lying on the ground. He didn't move. John went over the kangaroo and put his baseball hat on its head.

    He took off his jacket and put it on the kangaroo. I took out my camera. While I was focusing the camera, I saw the kangaroo move. It woke up, and ran away before we could do anything.

    I started laughing but John looked very serious. He said his wallet was in the jacket. I laughed even harder. I stopped laughing, however, when he said that our car keys were also in the jacket.