Losing and Finding Again

 Have you ever lost something rather trivial, such as a piece of paper, and drove yourself crazy trying to find it? When I think about this scenario, I think of the story of the man who loses his keys, but instead of going . where he would most suspect they are lost, he stays in the light instead. Even when I am trying to find something, do I really have any idea what I am truly looking for? Suppose I then find that missing item--did I really find it, or was the missing item only symbolic of something more fundamental?
   A lot of this reminds me of the Augustinian model of good/evil which I read mainly from Anders Nygren's book Eros and Agape: namely, that evil is not a substantial thing in and of itself, but is only a misguided or 'perverse' search for the good. Things that we think we should not waste our time looking for can sometimes contain hidden meanings, such as the search for awe and wonder or a renewal of trust in oneself. According to Augustine, even the most profane longings are really sacred ones in disguise: I turn to them only when I don't have the resources to pursue a much purer form. This is to say: we should never dismiss our longings, however senseless and futile they may be, but at the same time, we should always keep an eye out for their lasting significance. Without this sense of the sublime meaning, one's searches turn out to be chimeric, only pointing to things that are subject to changing and shifting conditions. This is quite paper thin, when you think about it, but maybe by tracing one's longing back to the original and true inspiration, the search for the missing paper can become the search for one's life and purpose.