After Death

Recently, as I try to fall asleep, my mind has been taking on some dauntingly abstract thought. The type of thoughts that are stereotypically associated with stoners. The current thought taking up my mind is what happens after I die. I know that life goes on (I'm not self-centered enough to think the world revolves around me). But assuming that there is no afterlife (which I do), what will the moments after death be like?
This is going to be difficult to express, but I'm going to try. When you die, you lose all brain function (obviously) and the ability to perceive (also obviously). Therefore, it's just emptiness, but you don't even know it's emptiness. In fact, as far as you're concerned, you and everything else never existed. There is a world of life continuing onward and you are a memory to people, but for all intents and purposes, you never existed.

It really comes down to the ability to perceive. As you live, your perception is what solidifies existence ("I think, therefore I am" yadda yadda yadda). I don't want to get into the whole "this could all be someone else's dream" or that bullshit, but I'm going to briefly get close. All you know is that you are here and there are others of varying age around you, but you only know that they are here when you interact with them. As far as you know, there are only about 5 generations alive at a time and nothing but hearsay about anything before the oldest generation. Someone must have come before them for them to be here, but who's to say that everything didn't come into existence the minute you were able to perceive?

I don't really believe that, but it relates to the death issue and why the idea of life after death is so appealing. We don't want to think about ever losing our consciousness. It's nearly impossible to think about what it will be like after you die. It's mildly frightening to think about everything you've accomplished in life is ultimately fruitless, at least for yourself. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I keep a journal. So that my voice, my emotions, and my thoughts will live on after me.

All I know is that thinking about this makes me very curious about death. I don't want to die anytime soon, but when I get there, I hope I view it as an adventure into the unknown. Fuck space... death is the final frontier.

And since this is about death and lack of an afterlife, here's a song that can give us all hope for eternal life: