So I can speak to this, because it's been my entire life, and because I've had to think about it on my own in the early days, since you don't have peers that can discuss death and existential meaning from 5-12.
You know what is the best feeling in the world? After all the striving and effort, relationships, etc.. it's the black stillness when you pass from time and space, and it may freak you out conceptually, but it is actually delightful to not experience anything, before each procedure and before I went under I always knew I might die and after the first time I always was a little disappointed when my eyes opened again. It's just that good.
Ok, so why am I still alive? I'm curious and I have nothing to lose by sticking around to see if anything insane happens while I am alive, there's a lot of weird and interesting things in the world, not everything under the sun has been seen, new things appear constantly.
As a kid I once watched ants climbing a porcelain wall, and I had just learned that soap stops their trail, so I tried it and it did... and congestion backed up and they were lost, and I wondered what would happen, and after a bit I saw down near the bottom of this wall an ant moving fast and the other ants moved from its path ever so slightly so it was like watching the wake of a boat, and this ant got to the line and launched itself over, into the unknown and reopened the path, and this happened each time... and I realized that those ants were badasses and terminally cool, and that's how I wanted to live. Always exploring new paths.
The famous man and the poor man's experience in the grave is the great equalizer, everything in between, including the mundane can be unbound newness if you have and cultivate genuine wonder and curiosity.. and ultimately embrace intellectual humility.. we have no idea where existence might take us next, what a curious life and time.