OP you appear to be committed to (not) dying on this hill and I applaud you

Ain't nothin' in the RAW that states a sentient pile of dust can't play basketball.

A disintegrated creature and everything it is wearing and carrying, except magic items, are reduced to a pile of fine gray dust. The creature can be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell.

Why would you need to be "restored to life" if you weren't dead?

My sister played a campaign as a sentient ham sandwich. She would love this.

Edit:

Lmao 🤣

I see no flaw in this argument. Instead of dying, the character exists like the guy from “One” by Metallica, desperately waiting for a stiff breeze to end his existence.

The spell specifies you turn into gray dust. Unfortunately gray dust has no listed stat block.

Luckily it is mentioned in "Tales from the Yawning Portal", "The floor of this room is covered with a layer of fine gray dust and ash, three inches deep."

Based on the rest of the description you are restricted to the room in which you turned to dust and the only action you may take is casting " Minor Illusion", with the added restriction of all illusions must be humanoid.

that's a lich that travels with his phylactery

You're not dead when you're petrified, either, which can lead to some pretty interesting exploits, rules-as-written.

Petrified creatures count as creatures, not objects, so rules-as-written you can determine if a statue is a petrified creature by trying to target it with a spell that requires a creature for a target.

With the cantrip Poison Spray, you can check for petrified creatures without using spell slots or risking damaging the creature, since it would be immune to poison while petrified.

Get the feeling it would be difficult to have a dust based strength character though. Hard to hold weapons/make attacks with them as dust.

Maybe wizard?

I mean, from your characters perspective, death is preferable to being transmuted to dust, especially in a setting with a well established afterlife.

You can be literally obliterated by a sneeze. And you're so dusty, folks would need to make a Con check for allergies.

All that we are is dust in the wind.

*"Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Jesus, get the quote right.