I hope I don't miss anything from this world after I die.

If we were in a spirit realm, our overall state of mind would determine where we go. To some extent this is true while we are in this world.

Some of the things people say they will miss are harmless, for example, I also enjoy hot showers.

I won't miss people who accuse others of pontificating, simply because they present viewpoints they aren't interested in.  Since I know Justin beyond this forum, I don't believe he has a holier than thou attitude. Gosh, even Jesus suggested that people don't look for their riches in this world.  As Emanuel Swedenborg would say, "What do you love?"

   What you described Seagull, sounds to me like a heart opening/expanding/resonating and you acutely perceived the beauty of creation. 

  Or, perhaps more accurately, the beauty within, resonated strongly for some moments, to the beauty seemingly without. 

  This is what I was referring to earlier as a Solar*, opening the heart to gratitude/appreciation in the now type process. Certain things seemingly outside oneself, can spark this more than some other things. *(It also can be and often is, an attunment to Venus, which is also related to the heart--but more in the personal, human, typically experienced sense than the Sun--personal love/beauty vs a much more expanded and impersonal version). 

  For self, I find that nature in it's various manifestations tends to have this facilitating resonation effect more than a lot of other things, besides deep meditation, listening to certain songs, singing, etc. Today, my spouse, a close mutual friend of ours, and I went to a farm to pick strawberries, and then after went to a large park near a river and estuary. 

   It was quite nice, and self experienced a lot of that heart resonation/expanding, while attuning to the various manifestations of nature around us, whether the water, the animals, the plants, each other's joyful/happy company, etc. 

   But, this is very different than the 2nd center, Lunar resonation that I talked about earlier of missing and being over attached to the past and the material plane.  Note, I connected the Moon to the etheric level/body of our human energy system? 

  Where do most classic retrievals of stuck, former humans happen, what level?  The same that we call our etheric!  It's only slightly faster vibratory than the physical, and contains a lot of the physical human hangups and limitations, such as fear, attachment to the physical, distorted beliefs, which is why some humans when they get stuck, get stuck in this level.

(If a person is born with the Moon very strong in their natal astrological chart, it often symbolizes that they are strongly bringing over some energies from a self whom had been stuck in the classical sense.  Along with the symbolism of the Moon, there tends to be definite tendencies to fear, worry, thinking a lot of the past, over attachment to the physical and pleasures of same [Moon can often indicate definite hedonistic tendencies], and a general spiritual weakness of character, but often more in a passive sense than in an actively destructive sense such as Mars, Saturn and/or Pluto often represent). 

It is important to understand that it is the personal desires in our lives which fuel the flames under our individual behinds, so to speak. That energy can be used in a million ways.

That is the reason for practice, of the sort that some people do. One can be practicing for something one desires, and can find a higher cause while doing so. So it is not about self denial at all.