To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child.My past is your presentAm I here as a person or a hologram? Firstly, you need to believe in the impossible. Can you do that? Great. What you need to know is that Im a girl from 2100. And I am no hologram. Ive just time travelled because, well, thats possible now.But what truly matters is my mission here: the people where I come from, your descendants, I mean, dont know anything from our past, that is, your present and your past all in one. All memories seem to have been erased, although they havent, so were currently found stuck in evolution. Thats why Im here today.This society youre building is hypocritical. In a minute, youre told that is important never to forget some events, such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11. However, in the very same minute, youre told that you have to get over some other situations that you think wouldnt exist anymore. Essentially I am talking about racism, feminism and sexuality, no matter how clich they seem to be nowadays.Id like to quote David C. McCullough. He said that history is a guide to navigation in perilous times; history is who we are and why we are the way we are. I reflected on this message and what this historian meant with it. The truth is people are often surprised when they look back in history.Lets take a quick look on a couple of situations.1) FERGUSON CASEOn August 9, 2014, a police officer of Ferguson shot and killed an unarmed black 18-year-old. Key facts about the shooting, including why it happened in the first place, remain in dispute.This shooting, like so many similar incidents brought back conversations about racism not only in America, but in the world as a whole. Fundamentally, after so many centuries of racism, which include slavery and apartheid, the problem of racism still remains alive, when it should be very deeply buried by now.2) THE MACHINESomeday soon youll hear about the machine the USA built which purpose was to detect acts of terror. But their creators couldnt narrow down what separated those acts of terror from crimes involving ordinary people, like you. Most of the people had no desire to stop those ordinary crimes, so they remained focused on terrorism, without actual success.Eventually, someone powerful, yet with a conscious, realized that too many lives had been taken and, therefore, it was decided that the machine had to be shut off.In the time I live in, people have picked up that idea again, not knowing the consequences of that choice. Thousands of lives are lost every day because of that kind of ignorance towards the past.History repeats is a common old proverb. Most people would agree with it; I, for one, disagree. Quoting Marc Twain, History does not repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes. At first, I laughed about it. Why? Simply because it sounds like a pretty quote, with no previous thoughts of what it means. But then, it hit me. Repetition is the act of doing something again. On the other hand, rhyme is the identity in sound of some part. To sum up, repetition is to reproduce something that is exactly the same; rhyme is to reproduce something similar, but not quite equal.I think this quote means that although history does not repeat itself in the sense that exactly the same things happen over and over again, it does have a recurring theme. Similarities - as between Afghanistan and Viet Nam that "ring a bell" as rhymes do.For perhaps the only thing worse than not remembering ones mistakes and learning from them, is remembering them too much and refusing to move forward at all. As that other great American philosopher, Johnny Cash, once said, You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it.So, Ive given you two options: one is to sit tight and do nothing or you can actually make a change.Wait. You thought I was going to leave that quickly? Jeez, hold your enthusiasm. I havent traveled this far just to tell you what you already know, or so you think you do.So I was searching for ways that you could remember the past and not feel bad about it. I googled how to remember the past and then the saddest thing came up: Did you mean how NOT to remember the past? Google, cmon, are you serious? Even you?Those who choose to simply forget the past miss out on its fullest potential.Consider the lessons we can learn from our past. By simply asking the right questions, we can discover a lot. Has this made me stronger? Has this past brought me someone or something incredible to my life? Have I learned something from past events? Ask yourself these and tell me if Im not right.History teaches values. If it is true history, it teaches true values; if it is pseudo-history, it teaches false values. The history taught to our children is playing a role in shaping their values and beliefsa much greater role than we may suspect.

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