I find it interesting how memories are formed.

Many memories are a blur, and details are questionable at best. Sure, we remember moments, but the absolutes rarely stick.

What did you have for supper on your 24th birthday? What shirt were you wearing the last time you hung out with your best friend?

I don’t understand why I can’t remember where I placed my car keys yesterday, but I can remember exactly where I was the day after Muammar Gaddafi was killed by Lybia’s rebel army back in 2011.

In recent weeks I’ve been in a rabbit hole of war journalism — specifically that of Sebastian Junger and Marie Colvin. The stories of Marie in Libya during the Arab Spring of 2011 triggered an odd memory that contains surprising detail.

I think a lot of it comes down to not only the significance of the event, but the contrast to my normal life at the time.

The significance, in this case, was negligible. Libya was worlds away from home. And at the time, so was I.

This is where contrast comes into play.

I remember odd details clearly from the moment I saw the newspaper covers. I was facing west, a memory that has always struck me as strange. I wore a plain black T-shirt and grey pants because mornings are cold in Dharamsala at that time of year. The smells of incense and burning charcoal were in the air. Two newspapers were on display at the tiny shop — one in English, the other in Hindi. Both showed different images of Gaddafi’s tattered corpse on their covers.

This sticks with me because I was in Dharamsala, in the Himalayan foothills of Northern India. Specifically, the village of McLeod Ganj — an old British hill station that is now home to the Tibetan Government in exile.

It’s one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever visited.

I was in McLeod Ganj not only for the sake of travel but because the Dalai Lama was giving a talk at his residence — an event I couldn’t pass up.

Amongst the prayer flags and incense of a culture intertwined in Buddhism is not the place you expect to see the executed body of an Arab dictator.

Yet there I was.

A chance clash of cultural differences slapped me in the face. And it’s stayed with me to this day.

I don’t know why this feature of memory is built into us, but it tends to show up at the strangest of times.