philosophy

In my philosophy class we have been talking a lot lately about the end of the universe. My professor takes the stance that Tolstoy takes in his piece, "My Confession", where he talks about life being like the parable of the well, with a dragon at the bottom, a beast at the top and man clinging to a tiny branch in between. Tolstoy basically says that the inevitable death  ruins the goodness in life, which in the well scenario would be honey on the branch to which man clings. My professor takes this stance. He seems to think that if we're all going to die anyway, why do anything?

A friend of mine brought up a good point though, that I can't seem to get off my mind. He said, if we're all going to die anyway, why not do all we can? I love this idea, and it's been floating around in my head for a while now. I can't seem to let it go, so I just keep thinking about it. I think that experiences are all we'll have when we go off to another place after death, so why not take some good ones along? And even if we don't go anywhere after death, if we just lay in the ground and rot, at least someone still living might remember us for living life to the fullest every day and maybe they'll make an attempt to do so as well.