> Perhaps those who don't have a particular goal they wish to dedicate their adult life to - which would be most of the kids - don't see harm in not making it to adulthood - especially seeing how most don't and it's the norm in their world. One way to think of it is that they take the joyful and fun part of life for themselves and leave the boring and tedious (adult) part to someone who's more into it. But it's not seen as egoistic, but more like leaving complicated stuff to actually competent people.

Another aspect of this occurred to me the other day: one more way to think about it is that they treat dying not as losing their life, but as completing it... like finishing a book... or maybe even like finishing writing a book, so instead of being sad that it ended and wanting a sequel, it's more like - that's it, my story is now complete. Or another analogy: like finishing a videogame without caring to 100% it, and not feeling like you're missing out on all that side stuff because you simply never were a kind of player who was interested in it to begin with. This analogy works especially well with dying for graduation, like you've completed the fun story part and don't care about the remaining tedious endgame.

Then there's the aspect where they don't think about death as making them miss anything, because they can't miss something without there being them to miss it. Although I guess at this point I'm just saying things I already said in my stories, just generalizing them as not just particular characters' motivation in a moment, but that it might as well be a whole world's common sense.

Anyway, just wanted to mention these ideas before I forgot them.