What is a dust?

Dust is small but its importance is enormous.  In fact, a dust produces the simplest of all living beings from which all the complicated ones come from. In a dust, we find the signatures of everything dead or alive.  The largest of all structures, which we are so proud of, are in fact made of dust. On the other hand, the smallest of all living being finds their shelter in the same dust. Dust has been here since the beginning of time and will continue to exist even after the definition of time will cease to exist. Dust has co-existed with the Super Power for all times and has defied the parameters of life and death. Dust is ubiquitous and eternal.

What makes the dust so beautiful ultimately is not its eternity but its humility. A mere wind can blow it as it pleases. A child can make a castle out of it with his tiny inarticulate hand. One can walk over it without being fearful of reprisal. It is the dust, in which anyone takes the ultimate shelter of death and no question is asked to him/her, not judgment is passed onto him/her. The dust never asks you for your identity and never treats you any differently.  It does not know how to differentiate between rich and poor, small and big.  It just remains a witness and everything that we create and destroys.  It never changes who it is because it does not assume an identity, never signs a paining, never put a logo, and never gets nominated for a prize.

It also inspires us to never let ourselves feel significant again.  In fact, in all of our pride, we are not be even of the size of a dust particle. We are less than a dust particle when we compare our largest creation with the earth. If you go one step further, and look at stars, even the earth becomes smaller than a dust particle. The dust, in a way, warns us from comparing because nothing is smaller than it and nothing is bigger than this.

We are so lucky that we have come from such a thing.  Nothing but the dust itself is our mother.  And, one day, we will go back to it.  Let's look forward to it. Let's look forward to coming home.

Question of Marriage

I was examining my own decision about my marriage. Even before I had come to the age of marriage, I had decided never to marry. Ultimately, I had to change my decision.  Therefore, for a long time, I struggled with the question that how could I change that conviction.

I think I figured it out. What went wrong in that conviction is that  I tried to relate the question of marriage from a point of view of "principle". I tried to give the answer to this question in a similar fashion as I would answer the question whether stealing is wrong or right. This is where I went wrong.

The fact is that the question of marriage cannot be answered from a moral standing. Because neither it is morally wrong or morally right. Being used to looking at it from a moral point of view yields a wrong answer when the time comes to make an actual decision. Given some compelling reason for marriage, the logic gets shattered because, at the moment of decision, we apply the same moral principle. Of course, the moral principle, when applied to the question of marriage, will yield the answer "I do" because there is nothing morally "wrong" about it.

The bottom-line is that marriage is a question of willingness to live with a partner. When we are ready to do so, we are ready for it. The call should be made from the stand point of how behemoth this task is and what freedoms are at stake. The right question to ask about marriage is not if love or romance exists. Marriage is a practical question while love and romance are the intermittent fluctuation of heart and chemistry.

I failed in marriage. The lesson to learn here is to look at any issue (not only marriage) honestly and making a point of view not from the fervor or zealot but from a more objective analysis of "what is the bottom-line" and breaking a problem into its most simplified elements and then trying to take position on it. In that case, it is easier to take a point of view and then change it if needed and still able to reconcile the two sides.  More likely than not, when we answer a question at a very fundamental level, the answer will persist.