The Man Who Lost His Key

Lucas A. Davidson
4 min readDec 29, 2023

Daily Meditation 671–12/29/2023

“Dammit! Where’s the bloody key!”

There was a man who lost a key one night. This key was very, very important to him.

So, the man ventured outside. The streetlamp at the end of his property shone in a golden ring, half over grass, half over damp pavement. This was where he focused his search.

After an increasingly cold hour, a friend of his was walking by and offered to help find this important key. Beside himself with stress, the man gladly accepts the help, hugging his friend.

Another half hour passes, and the friend finds them both on their knees, combing through the dewy grass beneath the streetlamp, pants soaked and their legs chilled to the bone.

“You’re sure you lost it right here?” he asks. His friend doesn’t immediately respond — maybe he didn’t hear?

“Hey — where did you drop this key? You sure it was here?”

“No, no,” comes the reply, “I lost it somewhere in the house.”

Incredulous, his friend rises to his feet, soggy shoes letting out a squelch. “Well, what in the hell are you doing looking over here then, man?!” cries his friend in disbelief.

“Well,” the man says, still scouring, head down, for his key along the wet gutters of the street, “the lights in the house weren’t working. It was…

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Lucas A. Davidson
Lucas A. Davidson

Written by Lucas A. Davidson

Daily philosophical meditations on Eudaimonia. These are distillations from the forthcoming book on the topic. Comments or jobs: lucas@multistatewide.com

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