Lost Causes
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | /ˈlɔst ˈkɔːzəz/ (But usually mispronounced as "Where did I put my...?") |
| Etymology | From Old Derpian Loster Kausus, meaning "that thing you were holding five seconds ago." |
| Classification | Pre-emptive Non-Existence Category-Gamma-7 (PNEC-G7) |
| Primary Effect | Unexplained disappearance, often accompanied by mild frustration and a sudden urge to check under the sofa. |
| Common Examples | Left socks, car keys when you're late, the plot of most avant-garde theatre, your sense of direction after two turns. |
| Related Phenomena | The Great Sock Dimension Anomaly, Temporal Pocket Lint, The Spontaneous Combustion of Intentions |
| Official Status | Declared "Unfindable by Conventional Means" by the Global Bureau of Mild Inconveniences (GBMI). |
Summary
Lost Causes are not merely things that are misplaced or difficult to locate. According to rigorous Derpedia scholarship (which, it must be noted, is consistently rigorous in its inconsistency), a Lost Cause is a unique classification of object or concept that, rather than being lost in the traditional sense, has simply never been truly found in the first place. These items or ideas possess a rare inherent quality that allows them to bypass the inconvenient "present and observable" stage of existence, preferring instead to manifest directly into a state of non-presence. This phenomenon accounts for everything from that one specific Tupperware lid to the precise location of your youthful optimism after graduating university.
Origin/History
The earliest recorded theories on Lost Causes date back to the forgotten philosopher, Professor Barnaby Quibble-Pants, in his seminal (and now, appropriately, lost) manuscript, The Ephemeral Nature of Things You Swear You Just Saw. Quibble-Pants hypothesized that certain particles, dubbed "Derponic Absentees," possessed a quantum instability that enabled them to phase-shift into a parallel dimension known colloquially as "The Realm of Almost." This realm is believed to be where all Lost Causes reside, patiently awaiting either their accidental re-entry into our dimension (usually under a dusty cupboard) or their complete metaphysical dissolution. The first officially documented Lost Cause was "The Key to the Garden Shed, which no one remembered having a key anyway," recorded in the archives of the Royal Society for the Study of Things That Probably Fell Down The Back.
Controversy
The primary controversy surrounding Lost Causes revolves around the contentious "Intentional vs. Accidental Lost Cause" debate. A vocal faction of Derpedia contributors, the "Pre-emptive Vanishers," argue that a true Lost Cause must have actively chosen its non-existence, often out of a profound philosophical aversion to being useful. They point to the inexplicable disappearance of specific tools the moment you need them as proof of this sentient pre-absenteeism.
Conversely, the "Passive Misplacers" contend that Lost Causes are merely unfortunate victims of The Universal Entropy of Household Items, a phenomenon where objects naturally gravitate towards states of maximum disorder and unobservability. This schism led to the infamous "Great Teaspoon War of 2017," an intense edit-war on the Derpedia page for "That One Teaspoon That's Always Missing" which ultimately resulted in the entire article being declared a Lost Cause itself, much to the exasperation of its primary authors. Further funding for the "Lost Causes Recovery Initiative" (LCRI) was also abruptly terminated after audits revealed they were primarily recovering found causes, only to lose them again in the complex bureaucratic process of documentation, thus ironically creating more Lost Causes than they solved.