Would it be something from my childhood? An unpleasant set of pictures of myself in a dark corner of my Bandung bedroom? Would it be one friend who betrayed our friendship? Would it be all about someone I met (eight) years ago, who gave me some (emotional) bruises at the end of our relationship? Or would it be someone who always give me real laughters yet also sad tears?

Our memories store some unpleasant echoes of failure and betrayal. These can make us unhappy; some people want to forget these memories and move with their lives. So, wouldn't it be great if we can have some selective unwanted memories erased?

In the movie I just finished watching, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you can have that option. Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his staff (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood), with their company Lacuna, offer this service by performing a certain 'brain surgery' procedure. And the story begins when Joel (Jim Carey) is going through this procedure after he finds out that her girl-friend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has her memories of Joel erased.

As you can guess, like all other movies with techno-science theme, this movie too dwell on the technological failure. So it goes, procedure of having Joel's memories of Clementine removed is a failure and this is really the core of the whole story.

I'm not gonna tell how the story goes and how it ends. You better watch it by yourself. While I don't think it's a 5-stars movie, I really think it is a very interesting movie. I like the way it presents technological breakthrough stuff as channel to metaphorically pose a deeper dilemma: would we be better off or not by erasing heartbreak from our lives. Charlie Kaufmann (a writer) did a great job in presenting this dilemma in a smart framework of pyschological adventures . The plot is clever. The story is poignant. And of course the actors did so well.

I love some scenes--visual collage--of erasure moments where tangible artifacts are rumbling off as the memories are gradually removed. It is not a new idea, but still, it works well in this movie.

Much I can say about this movie. On the top of it, for me this movie is a reminder that true happiness has no easy answers. It is not merely about a gigantic collection of good and beautiful memories.

On February 24th, 2005, Guardian Unlimited put this breaking news: "Palestinian Cabinet Dominated by Academics". My eyes went through the lines and then the breaking news really broke me as I read this line:

Sabri Saidam, 41, communications and technology: holds doctorate in electric engineering, worked for U.N. aid agencies in the Gaza Strip, Welfare Association on Palestinian development issues, technology coordinator and chairman of the Internet Society-Palestine Chapter.

Why so? Because Sabri Saidam, a new Palestinian Minister of Communications and Technology, is a good friend of mine. Just a month ago, early February, I met Sabri in New York. I met him for the first time in Geneva about a year ago as we happened to be in the same research network "Information Technology and Civil Society" funded by SSRC. Sabri is such a nice sweet guy. I will never forget a thick mustache and a warm smile on his clean face. I actually spent much of my last day in New York with him. Me and him walked together after our last conference session and had coffee together before attending the dinner. After dinner, we got along together again, taking a short midnight tour around Manhattan. He gave me four big warm hugs as we said goodbye that night.

I am just so happy that at such a young age he has achieved an extraordinary thing and he really deserves that. I wish him the best. I believe Sabri will do his best for his country, Palestine. Best of luck, Sabri, my friend.

This is actually the second time that my friend became a Minister. The first was Silvia, Silvia Adriana Ticau, one of my colleagues who was appointed a Minister of Communication and Information Technology of Romania last year. Silvia is a young lady I met at the World Summit Award where we spent about a week together in Dubai in 2003. Then later that year in Geneva for about 3 days. However, I think I have more connections to Sabri. Despite our being together at the World Summit Award, I don't really know Silvia well. Still, I was a bit proud knowing that she became a minister, though.

Funny that while I know the Palestine Minister well enough, I don't actually know any Indonesian Minister. Let alone Minister, I don't know any 'pejabat' in Indonesia... and all Ministers and pejabats in Indonesia don't know me either... hehehe. Anyway... it's ok, I don't lose anything anyway by not knowing them...;)