Is This Life all there is?

I live as if it is. There is not enough evidence for an afterlife to even be agnostic, but in any event even an improbable God as afterlife concierge would have to base a decision on the life lived between birth and death to be worth paying any attention to. Below we have one take on the issue, thanks Aka_me. It almost sounds reasonable but still is a distraction from the important task of living. But if the principles that get you the cookie result in a good life for self and all others, I have no argument.

when this life IS all there is...what is the difference between dieing today and dieing 40 years from now?
Aka_me

40 years of making life a little better for those who are important in my life. Each day I do what I can to make myself and others around me a little wiser, more compassionate, and more willing to share our gifts with the living, and to share the gifts from the deceased with the living. The Mozart sonata is relevant here, but so are the lullabies composed by my atheist great-grandmother that are still lulling generations of children into pleasant, hopeful sleep, secure in the love of their parents who will be there for the next 40 years.

Exactly the point. I not only have the memory but I can encourage others to share the experience at a later performance. Or if push comes to shove I can buy (not rip) a recording and share that. I was at a stunning concert just last night with an unusual combination of chamber singers with a string quartet. Three commissioned works and two works rescued from the ignore pile by Brahms and Beethoven and adapted for the combo. I have already promoted several copies of the planned CD and ordered one for myself. They made a huge difference, and I certainly hope they will be around for another 40 years, doing innovative things with the human voice.

As for the crappy hypothetical. I paid almost that in current $ to hear Messiaen play Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité at the National Cathedral. The experience itself was transcendent and was priceless. I cannot remember it well in the sense of which note came after which, and the experience was entirely in the moment. There was in fact nothing left after the silence at the end.

I am not so egocentric that value to me is the most important thing or even an important thing. What is important is how I affect the others that are important to me.

Take for example Socrates, not comparing myself mind you, just using a famous example. He certainly is worthless to himself right now. He had no illusions of an afterlife. But he affected students and one, Plato, was affected enough to document how he affected those students. Socrates is still one of the most important people in a philosophical discussion.

While the children and grandchildren are important, the fact that they look like me is of no importance. The fact that they think like me, love like me, make music like me and thousands of other ways are like me is what is important. And there are others, who don't look like me that in some measure think like me, love like me, make music like me and in thousands of other ways reflect my influence on them.

This is my legacy, at some point I won't be around to enjoy it but I rest assured each night that it will be carried on and enjoyed. Some who carry parts of it on don't even know where it came from. That bothers me not a whit. If their lives are better for it I did not live in vain.