CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- "This one's a definite for my Monday File," I said to my husband as he took my place at the computer.

"Is that what you're calling it now?" asked Geoff. "What happened to -- what was it? -- your visual antidepressants?"

"Eye Prozac," I said. "I dunno. Monday File seems to fit better. I need them more at the start of a week."

I stood behind him as he watched the latest of my growing collection of short YouTube videos that have become my virtual security blanket -- what I turn to for comfort when I'm feeling low.

Many of the videos I'm holding on to are ones that have gone viral, the term for content that spreads from one person's computer to the next faster than swine-flu symptoms through a hypochondriac convention. It's the kind of phenomena that turned Susan Boyle of "Britain's Got Talent" into an overnight celebrity and inspired a generation of brides to start choosing their attendants based on how good they can dance.

Right now, my favorite is a video filmed in a train station in Antwerp, Belgium, in March 2009. For those of you without Internet access, I'll briefly describe it.

It's 8 in the morning and the station is crowded. There's the usual din of train station noises when all of a sudden, a recording of Julie Andrews singing "Do, Re, Mi" begins playing over the speaker system. A man, dressed like an ordinary traveler, goes to the center of the courtyard and starts dancing. A young girl with a backpack joins him, and then a handful of others, dressed in everyday garb, join in for a wonderfully choreographed yet totally spontaneous-looking dance.

A swarm of school-age children start dancing their way down a wide staircase while other dancers spill in from here and there to join the main group, which has now grown to about 200 participants.

When the song ends, the crowd of dancers disperses so quickly and smoothly that you'd never know the dance had just happened. The spectators are left looking amusingly stunned.

It's easy to understand why the video went viral, with well over 1 million views. It was one of those things that, if you allow it, can make you feel good for hours.

Over the next few days, I noticed I was feeling compelled to watch it again and again, and it wasn't until I made note of the circumstances surrounding those compulsions that I realized what it was that was drawing me there.

Each time I heard or read something that struck me as particularly barbaric, or news of a child or animals being hurt or mistreated, it was like my mind needed to balance the bad with some good.

That all those people were willing to take the time to learn that dance in order to provide a quick thrill for a bunch of total strangers who didn't have a clue what was happening -- I find that enchanting. Powerful.

Inspiring.

When I allow myself to pay too much attention to the news or to our finances or the amount of work needing done, it's hard not to get down. I need to expand my collection of videos into something that doesn't require a computer to see. I need a list to remind myself about all the people who mow lawns for elderly neighbors or fix meals for exhausted new parents or tend the graves of total strangers just because someone should.

People who catch and fix feral cats, who decorate random statues and trees with knitted scarves, who make a point of dropping change in places for children to find.

Who make things better for others they don't even know.

They give us a reason to want to join in the dance.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@cnpapers.com.