What you write is spot on - profound and simple at the same time.

For myself, the proposition that there is some 'inner' light or divine spark to be sought, the pearl of great price in the dunghill, is undecidable. Meaning I don't really know, but I am pretty sure of the following points about it:

First, just like you, whether it is true or not, I have given up trying to find it, and am much happier as a result.

Second, as a metaphor, I find it can sometimes be helpful and comforting.

Third, as a metaphor, it can also be unhelpful and damaging, particularly if I do not realise it is a metaphor, and take it to be real. For then I treat what I consider is not this pearl as a dunghill and of no account. And since I do not in fact find this 'pearl' (it is only a metaphor at best), then everything is other than the pearl, and everything I am aware of is thus the dunghill by definition - my self, other people, the environment and the world I live in.