What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
—Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
Humans. We constantly reach for more, better, higher.
What gives us that right? What makes us think that we are made for more?
In the end, we all end the same way. The brightest scientists, the most innovative disruptors, the most powerful politicians, the richest of the rich — they all end in dust. The bravest and the most cowardly. The most hopeful and the most despondent. The well-educated and the ignorant. They all go into the ground in the end.
Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes.
The world spins round and remembrance ebbs. Stars in the sky of memory wink out of existence.
And when the lights go out, everyone’s gone.
Dust is the sum nature of our parts. From the earth we were formed and to the earth we return.
Yet, even in the most humbling of moments, the human is triumphant — the soul, that is. Soaring and separating from the dust-frame, the soul survives even death. When the flesh is trapped in earth, the spirit transcends and lives on.
It is from this ephemeral part of man that the longing for better, higher, brighter things springs forth. It is from the soul that a man begins to think he is made for more.