I've thought about that a lot.

Maturity is what you've reached when you believe and accept the fact that some day, you will most
certainly die and there's nothing you can do about it...and you don't let that interfere with your plans
and go on with your day.

When I'm gone...this body will decay and it will be a horrible sight and smell,  for a while.  And then it
will eventually become dust,  or maybe my skeleton will fossilize.   Partial mummification is a possibility.    Perhaps my skull will be in a museum a few thousand years from now, and people will see it
and wonder how their primitive ancestor lived and what he thought.

Some of the materials of my body will re-enter the food chain,  and therefore, some of my atoms
and molecules will live again in other humans, and in other animals, eventually.   A simple but
very physical form of reincarnation.    

And eventually our sun will go nova and all that my body is now will be dissociated down to individual
atoms and various compounds and will be scattered into the universe by the solar wind.

Those atoms and chemicals will go out into the universe and some will be captured by gravity,
collected,  and may some day be incorporated into another sentient life form,  perhaps one not
unlike this one.

And the cycle shall continue.  

As for ME,  the essence of me that I call my soul,   I believe that it is the force that drives and
inhabits this complex biochemical machine that is my body, and gives it purpose.   I believe that
it has existed before this body did, and it will exist after this body dies.  

And I'm not alone.   There are many like me.  Some have leadership roles.


I have no proof.   That's why it's called FAITH.    And because neither I nor anyone else I have
ever known would choose to believe that there is nothing beyond this life.    

I know what oblivion is like.      There's NOTHING there,  not even time or any sense of its passage.
I've experienced it when I was put under general anaesthesia, once.      Unlike when you sleep,
there was not the slightest sense of the passage of time between when I was put under and when
I revived.   There was only an infinitesimally short transient shock of absolute and utter nothingness, which probably represented an hour of real world time.

If oblivion is our fate,  there is nothing to fear from it.   Because there is nothing at all.  No sense
of self,  no purpose,  no existence.   I would even say that it is the total ABSENCE OF NOTHING.

I choose to believe that oblivion is not our fate.    And I know that there is a God,  whatever his
nature may be.    That has been more than adequately proven to me.   If there was not one,
I would probably be dead now due to one accident that I avoided...but not by any action of my
own conscious or unconscious mind.     A voice in my head said WAIT and I felt a hand on my
shoulder at that moment,   and so I stopped my car at a green light....and watched my would-be
killer sail through his red light at a a very impressive pace.    I had no warning of any danger at all.

CJ

I have family and friends who'll miss me just as I would miss them.  But, other than that, life will carry on just as it always has.  Hardly a difference...

I believe as the Mormons believe regarding that...which is that you do NOT get just one shot at earthly life.    Most of us have been around before,  and will be again.   You will continue to have mortal lives and  your spirit will continue to grow through each of them,   and each time,  you will become a little wiser
and a little better.    You will continue to live earthly lives until you have learned all the lessons that you were meant to learn,  and then you get your promotion.

Some of us have been around many, many times.  You will recognize them because they're the ones who have their acts together better than the rest of us.   They're the ones who fly high and far,  they married the prom queen,  became the leaders in their fields,   got the good jobs,  have a great family life, and have their own cult of personality around them.   The movers and shakers....the good ones, that is.
Of course there are those movers and shakers who are NOT good people, but the source of their
power is from the other side of the fence separating good and evil.


CJ