SUCCESS!

After about an hour of searching my entire computer, I finally found my final GP essay from last year, A.K.A, the best essay I've written to date. I am a WINNER.

Prompt: Why should we bother studying writing from the past or from other countries if it does not seem to be relevant to us?

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The most important thing is not to stop questioning." This quote from Albert Einstein gives great advice. Over the years, such a variety of historical highs and lows have accumulated in books, studies, and reports. With decades of history at our fingertips, would it not be advantageous to our society to use it as a resource to learn for not only now, but the future? And not only can we reap the benefits from past texts and inventions, but we can also learn from the development of countries around the world. Studying texts, blueprints, books, and even plays from the past and all over the world can only expedite our country's advancement.

Technological advancements throughout the years would have been impossible without previous inventions and developments that have been recorded into blueprints and documents from other societies. Even the simplest concepts would never have been created if it were not for previous ideas that we have researched. Take our modern day alphabet, for instance. Without the Phoenicians laying groundwork for such a system, our 26 letter alphabet wouldn't exist. There's also the development of more complex creations, such as the airplane. Without the original blueprints from Orville and Wilbur Wright, expansion on the original flying machine could have never occurred, and we would not have the massive jet-powered planes we have today. Over time, technologies have been perfected from the use of past experiences and recordings, and in no way is this progression stopping. As long as we use our past, we will continue to become more technologically savvy as time goes on.

There are those who say that because of current technology and world conditions, the past's recordings are irrelevant, especially as they apply to us from other countries. Not only is this untrue considering that there is always room to improve technologically and culturally, but this idea does not apply to philosophy or psychology. By using the lessons that our ancestors from other countries have already created and recorded for the sole purpose to help future generations, philosophies such as Buddhism and Hinduism have been created and spawned into two of the largest religions today. This proves that an even text from other countries past's are beneficial to our people.

With the use of the past's texts, new ideas can be spawned. There might not be a revival of the exact same concept that the Romans used in the architecture thousands of years ago, but with the integration of ideas and techniques from different cultures, something new and even more astonishing will be created. After all, that was how the Renaissance was started. The European's investigation of ancient Greek and Roman texts led to the birth of humanism, historical works of art from Da Vinci and Michelangelo, and groundbreaking books such as The Prince by Machiavelli. With such a great amount of history available today, who is to say another artistic renaissance is not around the corner in the grand scheme of things? Not only can we create an artistically advanced society today, but the discoveries and creations we make will assist future generations to initiate their own renaissance.

Over the years, great works of the past have been reproduced and updated for modern times ad infinitum. One might say that it is unnecessary to seek out the original when a modern adaptation is available and so much easier to comprehend. While this may be true, is it not important to see the original masterpieces in their purest forms? Take for example the recreation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into the musical West Side Story. While West Side Story is an excellent film, the real integrity of Romeo and Juliet can not be appreciated by simply watching its remake. The beauty and elegance of Shakespeare's poetry can only be truly appreciated by a select few, but that does not deem this masterpiece irrelevant to our society.

The world has made great progression since the early times of the nomadic hunters and gatherers, and writings from the past and other countries have only helped this progression. With texts from the past, we can "learn from yesterday"; with present writings from other countries we can "live for today"; and when we use all of this to work together to further our development, there always will be "hope for tomorrow."