Childhood, Death, Life & Worth (Rant # 5?)

I never really believed in the afterlife. I always had the idea that there was nothing after death, even as a kid. But a kid can't imagine nothing, so what is there?

Since I couldn't understand the idea of not existing, I imagined death was essentially locked-in syndrome-- not seeing, not hearing, not feeling, just thinking for eternity, & that idea was worse than any hell. I was terrified. The idea that my loved ones were sitting in boxes, doing nothing but going insane was pure torment. 

As I got older, I began to grasp the concept of the eternal sleep, but it made me wonder more about living. What's the purpose of life. Not that there is a universal "purpose", nor one set by a god, but what should I be doing? The conclusion I came to was to simply be remembered. The idea of a person can live on for as long as others can find their stories. 

But that's also pretty scary.

Every second spent living is practically a waste. Anytime spent consuming is doing nothing but ruining the limited time I have to be coherent. If I'm not learning, & I'm not creating, & I'm not interacting with people around me, then there's no reason I should be awake, creating memories, taking resources. No one else will know those moments of mine. They are leaving me constantly, & the only thing keeping them in existence at all, the fact that I remember, will also soon fade. The idea of youth, & the fact that it is so treasured, leaving me, while I have no real experiences to be able to say i truly "lived" it. 

But

All the other people out there creating mean nothing if there's nobody there to consume the beauty they made,

& all the people in there prime mean nothing if they spend it all worrying about how they soon wont be,

& all the people who have passed mean nothing if there's nobody to sit and remember them, at least for a while,

& if I'm going to die no matter what, & I wont be able to feel the death that will become me, then maybe the very few people I interact with will still remember me. 

That's not so scary, is it?