This sorta got away from me. Sorry about this. I'm not ripping on you or anything so much as trying to actually... discuss the themes, thoughts, and our respective perspectives.
I meant worry in the sense of "consider this when doing planning" rather than "have negative feelings about this". Opposite of "ignore", basically. Still, it is true that purposefully ignoring the future and wholly focusing on the present is a philosophy that I didn't take into account, probably because as you insightfully said, that philosophy isn't very western. Daisuke developing this view would satisfy my wishes for realism, yes
. I'd like for it to show a bit more in the writing about Daisuke though, but that's nitpicking.
And so was I(Re: consider this when doing planning). It's seen as strange to plan for what comes after in a lot of Non-Western religions. Unless of course a holy teacher has directly said that there's something wrong with your spirit. As we haven't had a priest talk about our warped soul yet, there's probably not a lot of reason for Daisuke to think about it.
There's also the fact that the religion of the area isn't touched on much in canon, either. It's easy to assume your own. We can guess that they're probably Shintoist from the vague trappings, the existence of Shinto shrine maidens in Filler, and so on, but it's never actually stated. Likewise, the tailed beasts partly match various folklore/religious creatures.
And of course, Naruto as a whole is a sort of pastiche of traditional story-telling. The Sannin are taken directly from
Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari. (Also, an equivalent of Rock Paper Scissors called "Slug, Snake, Frog". They exist in a deadlock, none of them stronger than the others). The main characters Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto are almost placeholder names. Sasuke is (as I think I've mentioned before) the standard Ninja Hero Name. Sakura is the standard Love Interest Name. Naruto is the standard sidekick name. Uzimaki is the standard "Strange Beast" name.
Which means, we're watching/reading/playing in a series called "Sidekick McGiantMonster" where the person who has all the power and advantages rapidly comes to realize that he's not the hero of this story(Sasuke's arc), the Love Interest realizes she has to take care of herself first, and the Sidekick realizes that his worth comes from more than just the approval from others he's sought his whole life(granted, by being so loud that they can't ignore him, but hey).
So it's pretty safe to assume that the Ninja religion is Shinto Adjacent. Western Ideals don't apply. Even heavily religious folks over there don't seem religious to us because it's very personal. Until it comes up what his beliefs are, it's a little silly to try to act on them or force your own. I mean, that's just my opinion.
I did offer a spiritual path in one of my omakes, where Daisuke reads the Book of Five Rings which has a decent chunk of it devoted to philosophy. That was predicated on the idea that the state religion of the Samurai State would look like something from one of the philosophy and religious books written by a bushi/warrior. In which death is accepted as a given, and thus the only things that matter are finding Your Path and not having anything to regret when you pass, be it five minutes from now, or five years.
That is, I think, something that's hard to accept from a Western perspective. Not Planning For The Afterlife is it's own plan. Accepting that you Will Die and what happens then is out of your control. The worst thing, in several Eastern cultures, was to have unfinished business and obsessions. These things could bind you to the Earth and twist you into a hungry ghost of some kind. Then you wouldn't pass on to your next reincarnation. Pain and Orochimaru are horror stories, people who are fighting the natural order and trying to take control of their destiny in a way that Man Wasn't Supposed To.
And what did they do? They tried to take control of their deaths, of what happens next. The fact that our method is to go with the universe(given what we've seen) puts us in a better light and situation, to be sure. But trying to game things for the next life is generally a way to earn the universes disapproval in those sort of narratives.
Also, Daisuke is 13. A lot of people don't really gain appreciation for their own mortality until their early twenties. Even as a ninja, he's a little young to be worried about this stuff.
