It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice; there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.

If you don't know how to live, why wonder about death?.

...the mind is conscious, but conscious of nothing - I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.