(Quiet reflections on data, memory, and what we choose to keep – a blog reposting from my old site (November 2018) with an additional note)

There are memories that force themselves to stay in your mind, no matter how much you want to forget them, and there are memories that slip away fast, like sand falling through your fingers; the harder you hold them, the faster they fade.

How our brain works is always fascinating, how it categorizes memories, which “folder” the new data goes into, and what keywords we use to call those memories back.

I’ve always had a problem with how my brain works when it comes to memory. I hate it. I feel bad too, because apparently no one around me seems irritated by their own mind the way I am. Or maybe they just don’t say it. Maybe it’s only me — overthinking everything.

Imagine this: you’re enjoying lunch; the best ayam goreng, classic style. Marinated in simple spices, slow-cooked until every flavor sinks in, then deep-fried quickly to give that perfect crisp on the outside. What you have that afternoon is golden perfection, fried chicken you’ve been searching for, the kind that feels like home. You eat it with fragrant rice and dip it in sweet soy sambal. Eat. Die. Eat. Die.

Then your tongue sends a message to your brain: this taste is identical to the fried chicken you once had with your ex. Bright, spicy, full of laughter and love, when you were still young. Suddenly those memories flood in, and there goes your perfect lunch.
I remember the taste and the feeling.

I remember everything like that.

I remember us sitting in the dark, next to each other, talking in silent anger. The light from another room fell at a strange angle. I saw city lights outside the window and thought — if each light out there represents one person’s problem, then mine is nothing. I’ll get through this.

I remember the color of your shirt; the collar slightly turned up on one side. The same shirt once stained with my lipstick. You cleaned it well.
I remember the hate.
I remember the rusty taste that stayed on my tongue for months after.

I remember our first meal together, how you laughed when I clapped my hands because it tasted so good. I still go to that place with friends, the food’s too good to give up. I know I can’t erase the memory; I only try to overwrite it. But it doesn’t work. I still remember everything.

You asked me to hold your phone, it was an important call you couldn’t miss, but you still wanted to eat. Everything about that moment stays vivid: the smell, the taste, that look.
I can’t erase it. Not yet.

The new memories I create are just sand in my hand, slipping away.
It’s still you, all over again.

If I could erase selective moments from my life, it would be so much easier.
But why won’t you turn into sand in my hand?

Forgive but not forget. I want both.
Forgiving myself has never been easy. Forgetting… that’s my biggest struggle.

Lying in bed, I still remember your scent.
How hard I tried to replace it with a new one.
How I wished you’d looked back at me that night.

I remember you.
I remember your hate.

My brain, its memory of everything is my biggest enemy.

Additional Note – 2025 Reflection

Years later, I find it almost poetic that I now work with data — systems built to classify, store, and recall information, just like the human mind I once accused of betraying me. Memory, whether human or digital, is never neutral. It remembers what we feed it, what we emphasize, what we refuse to delete. Every dataset, like every emotion, carries bias, noise, and truth.

Back then, I wished I could erase certain memories — clean the slate, start again. But now I see that forgetting is not how intelligence evolves. In data science, we refine models through training and error, not by wiping the record, but by understanding it differently. The same goes for us. We rewrite meaning, not memory. Even pain becomes a kind of dataset — a trace that teaches us pattern, empathy, and resilience.

Working in construction technology and AI, I see memory everywhere: in design histories, data logs, and systems learning to predict what comes next. It’s ironic — I once feared my own memory, and now I build tools that rely on remembering better than I can. Maybe memory was never the enemy; maybe it was the teacher all along.