Or does it?
I know we were once nothing, but it is still terrifying and depressing to me to think about returning to this. In fact, as of late, I’ve been unable to not think about it: the loss of all experience and all memories of everything, forever. All the good times we had, and will have, with anyone or anything ever will totally annihilate into nothingness. All our efforts will amount to nothing because the thoughtless void is ultimately what awaits everything in the end.
The only argument against this would have to be supernatural, like another cause of the Big Bang or somehow proof of reincarnation, but if my consciousness won’t exist for me to experience it, then what does it matter either way?
There is no comfort in Hell, either. The anvil of death weighing down, infinitely, on all values and passions is becoming unbearable for me, so I could really use any potentially helpful thoughts about this matter.
I’m saying: why does that change matter if you won’t even be there to experience it in full? (I’m assuming you’re talking about legacy improvements to humanity after your death; if you would experience it in full during life, then by all means, go for it: I’d agree with that, at least.) Otherwise, I think I’d need an example of what you mean.
Out of empathy and compassion for everyone still here after you’re not.
But as I’ve either said or alluded to elsewhere here, do empathy and compassion even matter if their 80-year lives are over in the relative blink of an eye and they die, too? You can certainly still do it if you want, but no one can claim that it’s a superior life versus a selfish approach if everyone’s just gonna die anyway and all of what you’re reading here right now, thinking, feeling, remembering, etc., and all individual-to-collective experience will eventually meet oblivion regardless of quality-of-life status. “Oh, their life was a little better for the brief moment they were on Earth.” So what, when facing eternity in the eye?